


Sabotaged

by kazwrites



Category: Among Us (Video Game)
Genre: Alien Crewmate(s) (Among Us), Aliens, Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst and Romance, Angst and Tragedy, Betrayal, Crewmate Turned Impostor (Among Us), Drama & Romance, Eventual Romance, F/M, Falling In Love, Human Crewmate(s) (Among Us), Human Impostor(s) (Among Us), Lies, Love Triangles, Murder, Murder Mystery, NASA, Outer Space, Romance, Slow Build, Slow Burn, Suspense, The Skeld (Among Us), Weekly Updates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-14
Updated: 2021-01-27
Packaged: 2021-03-10 02:07:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 11
Words: 36,446
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27556588
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kazwrites/pseuds/kazwrites
Summary: A simple cargo transport mission turns problematic when The Skeld begins to get sabotaged left and right. On top of that, they discover a murderous alien has taken over one of their crewmates and is picking them off one by one. Friendships and unspoken romances are being destroyed by this.. impostor. No one can be trusted anymore. They’ll have to act fast if they want to survive this.
Relationships: Crewmate & Crewmate (Among Us), Crewmate & Impostor (Among Us), Crewmate/Crewmate (Among Us), Crewmate/Impostor (Among Us)
Comments: 36
Kudos: 38





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> welcome to my cringy ass attempt at an among us fic!!  
> i was gonna leave song suggestions for each chapter but basically if you just listen to any song from the band Starset, it fits this story great!  
> also, here is a description of the crewmates' appearances and jobs since i don’t go into great detail about their appearances throughout the story:
> 
> Red: 30-35 year old African-American male, The Skeld's captain and backup weapons specialist, ex-marine  
> Orange: 25-29 year old Caucasian male, O2 and admin specialist  
> Yellow: 40-50 year old African-American female, psychologist and doctor  
> Green: 30-35 year old Caucasian male, biological scientist with some very basic medical knowledge to assist Yellow  
> Cyan: 22-28 year old Caucasian female, communications specialist and cook  
> Blue: 23-28 year old Caucasian male, engine repair and co-pilot/backup navigation specialist  
> Purple: 24-29 year old Filipino male, pilot/navigation specialist  
> Pink: 19-23 year old Asian male, Black's younger brother, reactor and shields specialist  
> Black: 25-29 year old Asian male, Pink's older brother, electrician and backup reactor specialist, secondary cook  
> White: 22-26 year old Caucasian female, weapons specialist, active marine

Cyan snapped up out of her sleep, awoken by the nearly deafening alarm that was blaring throughout the entire ship. She was able to hear the faintest sound of air hissing but her fears weren’t confirmed until she heard her panicked crewmate’s voice over her personal communicator.

_ “O2 depleting... I’m going there.. I need.. someone.. at admin!” _

Cyan couldn’t tell if Orange was out of breath because he was running or because the air was being sucked out of the ship. She didn’t stop to figure it out. She bolted out of her room and skidded around corners until she was in the administration room. She was the only one in here and the yellow glow from around the oxygen panel quickly drew her to it. Her free hand gripped her chest as she felt it tighten and hurt to breathe.

“179459–  _ EHNT! _ — Wha—?! 17..94...”

Cyan blinked hard while her vision began to blur from the intense feeling of suffocation taking over her body. She gasped for the smallest molecules of oxygen her lungs could find, but to no avail. Her words wouldn’t come out anymore but that didn’t stop her from finally being able to punch in the last two numbers correctly. The woman collapsed to the floor and breathed in deeply as the life-sustaining air flooded back into the ship. She panted only for a second or two before coughing hard. Tears found their way out of the corners of her eyes. It was both the shock and pain that did it to her. She shakily lifted up her head when she heard more heavy breathing followed by the occasional cough from the doorway.

“Cyan!”

Purple stumbled over to her side and pulled her against him.

“Thank god you’re okay...”

His voice was trembling but she couldn’t tell if that was because he was worried about her or just everything else.

“I’m.. fine..”

She mumbled out, both of them slowly starting to catch their breath again while they sat there for a few minutes. Cyan held onto Purple closely as she found comfort in being beside him. He considered her his little sister and always made a point to watch out for her. She loved him beyond words for this.

“What happ—“

_ “Emergency meeting. Now.” _

Red’s voice came through both their communicators and Purple grabbed her hand while standing up.

“Guess we’ll find out soon.”

Both the crew members rubbed their sore chests while they took the short walk from admin to the cafeteria. All emergency meetings took place there. Red and Green were already standing around one of the tables, talking quietly to each other with very concerning expressions on their faces. Cyan and Purple took a seat at the table and waited while the others trickled in sluggishly. Everyone looked exhausted, confused, and red in the face from near suffocation. Once everyone was there, either sitting or standing, Red took in a deep breath and spoke with his eyes down at the table.

“Someone sabotaged O2.”

“What?! How is that even possible?”

Black snapped immediately. His temper was quickly hidden when Red shot him a glare.

“Someone made it so the oxygen would be sucked out of the rooms suddenly. They tricked the system into thinking there was a ship-wide fire. The ‘geniuses’ at NASA made it so, instead of water sprinklers, the oxygen would be sucked out of the room on fire to suffocate the flames. That way all the electrical components wouldn’t get water damaged.”

Red rubbed his eyes with a shrug.

“Luckily, whoever did this didn’t turn off the warning alarm that goes off when the O2 drops below a certain point.”

The captain shifted his gaze around the table as if he was trying to decipher which one of them did it.

“What do you mean  _ someone _ ? Are you saying that one of your own crew members did this?”

Yellow questioned him softly. Despite the intensity of the situation, she kept a level head. Made sense why she was the psychiatrist of the crew.

“I’m sorry, Red, but I just don’t think that’s possible. You know I’ve been running biweekly psych tests and I haven’t suspected anyone here with the mental instability to do that.”

“People lie, Yellow.”

He said darkly. His words made people turn and look at each other with suddenly new distrust - something no one had experienced with this team. 

“That’s just not a good enough reason to say someone did it.”

She was about to continue on but Orange spoke up.

“I checked O2 myself. I check it twice a day, Yellow. There’s no way it was sabotaged before we left Earth. It was done after we all went to sleep..”

His eyes darted down and he shifted uncomfortably in the spot he stood. He was the quiet, nervous type but he could easily stand up for his crewmates when needed. He never threw blame and never raised his voice. He was truly the calmest out of all of them. Even over Yellow.

A silence fell over the group for a few moments.

“Red. What is it?”

Everyone’s eyes went from White and then to Red when she spoke. The captain’s eyebrows were tightly pinched together and he seemed to be stressed out beyond just the O2 situation.

“I— Green.”

Red lightly smacked Green’s chest and then gestured for him to talk.

Green stuttered and hesitated to speak before sighing heavily and running his fingers back through his hair.

“I have a suspicion that whoever did this.. Isn’t themselves anymore.”

“Well what the  _ fuck _ does that even mean?”

Black scowled at his younger brother’s words and punched his arm. Pink grumbled some sort of ‘Sorry’ but no one really heard it. It was more so just assumed that’s what he said.

Green, the biological scientist on the team, didn’t seem to be phased by Pink’s disrespect. He looked ashamed of himself and kept glancing to Red for some sort of reassurance. He wasn’t getting any though.

“I mean...”

There was a pause before his words basically spilled out.

“While you all were told this was a cargo mission - which it still is - Red and I were sent on our own mission. A top secret one given to us by NASA.”

Everyone was dead silent. So silent that you could’ve heard a pin drop from weapons.

“There was a crew before us, a three person crew, who landed on the same planet we left yesterday. They were the first people to ever touch down on that planet. NASA had just recently discovered it. Anyways, something horrible ended up happening and only one person made it out alive. She was beat up pretty bad and, when she returned to Earth, everyone thought she had gone crazy from the PTSD of losing her crew. She was spouting this nonsense about something taking over one of her crew members and he turned against them; killing one of them by—“

He looked like he was going to throw up.

“By tearing him in half...”

“Jesus, fucking get to the point Green!”

Purple groaned while he rubbed his eyes.

The scientist nodded and swallowed.

“Red and I were ordered to collect a specimen from that planet. To take it back to NASA so they could figure out what it was and if that woman had been telling the truth. We found one and brought it aboard yesterday before leaving. It was still in the lab before I went to sleep but when I checked on it after the O2 situation had been resolved...”

Everyone knew what was going to be said next but they still didn’t want to hear it.

“The specimen had broken out of its containment.”

Cyan’s chin quivered and her arms hooked around her stomach. She leaned forward slightly, feeling incredibly sick. Purple noticed this and put his arm over her shoulders to hold her close. Black had to take a few steps away to control his anger and Pink followed beside him. Yellow leaned her head on her hand and Blue gently touched her arm, meeting her gaze with a sad expression. 

“So.. This.. thing? It’s taken over one of our bodies?”

Yellow asked quietly.

“And it’s going to infect the rest of us?”

Green shook his head.

“No. It likes to stay with one host. I suspect this species likes to be in small groups. When we found this one, it was on its own but we also saw others in groups of two to three. Never bigger than three though. Since we only brought one specimen, it’ll stay with whoever it’s infected. Especially because it wants to blend in better. It pretends to be whatever species of the body it takes over to not draw suspicion to itself. The woman who survived told NASA that neither she nor her crewmate knew their friend had been infected. It could’ve been days before they found out. It had plenty of chances but the alien didn’t look to infect the other two. It just.. wanted to kill them.”

White punched a dent into the table and stood up furiously.

“Where the hell do you think you’re going?”

Red yelled out to her while she left the cafeteria.

“To prep the weapons. I’m not sitting here defenseless while this alien freak is trying to kill us all.”

Black watched her leave and then nudged his brother’s arm. They both followed after her and Red took a step back from the table.

“It’s smart. It knows how to sabotage parts of our ship.  _ Important  _ parts. Orange.”

The O2 technician perked up and stared at his captain.

“I need you to fortify the oxygen supply. However you can.”

He then looked to the rest of them.

“I want everyone to stay in groups. Go get on your suits and make sure your oxygen tanks are as full as they can be in case we have another problem. I want every inch of this ship checked for other sabotages.”

People slowly started to move away from the table, following orders, but Blue stopped them all in their tracks with a frightening question.

“How are we going to figure out who it is? Who is the impostor?”

All gazes fell onto Red and Green. Both of them looked at each other and then down to the floor in silence.

“You're both pathetic.”

Cyan gasped softly when she heard her ‘older brother’ speak that way to their captain. He then ushered her out of the cafeteria. Blue and Yellow followed while Orange stayed behind with Red and Green. The four of them walked in silence while they went to their individual rooms.

“All good?”

“Yes, I’m fine, I’m fine.”

One last good tug and Cyan had her suit comfortably on. She opened up the door to see Purple standing there, not yet dressed. He apparently wasn’t planning on letting her out of his sight at all.

“C’mon. Your turn.”

She lifted her helmet over her head and clicked it in place on her suit while walking with him to his room. Once he was ready too, they went down the hallway and turned a corner towards Blue and Yellow’s rooms. A small, startled gasp came from Cyan as she almost ran right into her fellow crewmates who were just about to turn the corner as well.

“Oh, sorry.”

She laughed it off softly while rubbing the back of her neck.

“So, nav first?”

Blue suggested.

“Nav’s on the other side of the ship. Are you sure we shouldn’t go check the engines first?”

Purple asked with his arms crossed over his chest casually.

The other male shrugged.

“Nah. I highly doubt the engines have been sabotaged. If they were, we’d already know it because the ship would be flying around in havok. Or just slowly coming to a stop… Even if they were sabotaged, they’ve been sabotaged so poorly that we could wait. Minor engine sabotage definitely won’t be as bad as a sabotaged navigation system.”

“Right..”

Purple nodded and uncrossed his arms, his body beginning to bounce a bit as if he was getting ready to run.

“Right! If the nav system is thrown, we could be flying right in the direction of a fucking black hole! Fuck!”

He then proceeded to turn around and sprint off. Blue, his second hand man, ran immediately after. The two women gave each other a brief glance before following quickly. Once in the room, Purple called out his order.

“You get on steering, I’ll tell you where we’re going.”

Blue halted.

“What? Are you crazy? I can’t steer as well as you.  _ I _ should be the one telling you where to go!”

“Get your ass behind that fucking wheel right now, Blue! I know the nav system better than you do! You steer the same as me but I’ll direct you how to steer if you absolutely need my help, okay?”

The pilot and nav specialist yelled to his secondary. Upon not seeing him move, he raised his voice even more.

“I’m not going to tell you again!”

With a frustrated huff, the co-pilot jumped behind the steering wheel while Cyan and Yellow kept out of both of the stressed out men’s way.

“The steering is stable. How are we looking direction-wise?”

Blue asked quickly.

Purple was frantically searching over the navigation screen, checking and triple checking their flight path. He mumbled things to himself and then finally there was a visible relaxation in his body.

“We’re fine.”

He gave a heavy sigh of relief and leaned back against the wall with a soft thud.

“We’re still on course as we should be. Nothing’s been touched. It’s the same as it was from before take off.”

All four crewmates stayed in a comfortable, relieved silence until a stifled sob was heard from the man sitting in front of steering.

“Blue..?”

Yellow stepped up behind him and gently put both her hands on his shoulders.

“Hey, it’s okay. You did great.”

He shook his head and his voice cracked when he spoke.

“I don’t want to die on this ship…”

He then dropped his helmeted head onto his hands and breathed choppily while trying to keep himself from breaking out into a full blown sob.

Cyan took a step towards Blue with the intention of comforting him as Yellow was, but she was stopped when Purple grabbed her arm and pulled her back.

“I don’t want you to ever leave my sight, alright? Not until we’ve for sure found the impostor.”

He whispered to her in a concerned tone.

She laughed lightly and patted the side of his helmet a couple times.

“You act as if I’m not already glued to your hip.”

“Cyan, I’m se—“

“Serious? Yes, I know. You're always serious. Don’t worry, I’ll keep myself within an arm’s reach of you at all times.”

Though her face was barely visible through her helmet, as all of theirs were, Purple knew she was reassuringly smiling at him.

“Hey, Blue, how about I sneak you a cookie from the kitchen. Would that boost your spirits a bit?”

She asked while walking over to her emotional crewmate.

The three of them all looked at her suddenly and Blue stuttered at first when answering her.

“I thought all the sweets had already been eaten when we were on the planet.. Did you hide one?”

Cyan folded her hands behind her back and shifted her weight back and forth on her feet innocently.

“No, I didn’t hide one…”

She spoke disappointingly, as if she didn’t have one at all.

“I hid two dozen!”

She jumped up slightly and giggled.

“Two dozen?! Why haven’t you given any to the crew yet?”

Yellow asked in utter confusion.

“I knew it! I knew you smelled like cookies the other night! Did I not ask you about it?”

Cyan laughed at Purple’s reaction and then gestured for the three of them to follow her.

“Black and I planned it as a surprise for you guys. We wanted to give them all to you before we docked at the cargo drop off station. It was going to be like a little celebration for a mission well done. But, I think this situation may call for an exception.”

She led them to the kitchen but they were all stopped when Red saw them walking through the cafeteria.

“Hey, there’s no need to check the kitchen for sabotage. The three of us already checked the food supplies.”

He said while pointing to Green and Orange who were sitting across from him.

“Did you guys already check engines and navigation?”

“Navigation, yes, but not—“

“Eh eh eh. No ‘but’s. If you haven’t checked engines yet then you get your asses over there and do it. Now.”

Purple glared at the captain for interrupting him and was grateful for the helmet blocking the look.

“Right away, captain.”

He answered coldly. He then gestured for Blue to lead the way.

The still sensitive crewmate stepped ahead of the other three and began the short walk to the upper engine. He was anxiously holding one arm with his opposite hand and kept his head down while he walked. Yellow and Cyan walked side by side while Purple protectively followed behind them.

“Do you..”

Cyan started hesitantly while speaking to Yellow.

“Do you have any suspicion as to who could be the impostor?”

The older woman was quiet for a bit and then sighed heavily with a shrug.

“I really don’t know. We’ve all been together for so long and I couldn’t imagine any of us trying to harm another crewmate… I haven’t noticed a change in anyone yet. Then again, I’ve really only been around you three and everyone’s under extreme stress right now. I think it’d be very difficult for me to try and decipher who it is.”

“If those motherfuckers Red and Green would’ve just told us about the alien once they brought it on board, we could’ve protected ourselves better and this wouldn’t have happened.”

No one said anything in response. It was obvious that they all agreed with Purple but they didn’t dare say anything bad about their captain. Up until this point, he had been a man they deeply trusted and were loyal to a fault to.

Once to the engine, Blue walked around the whole thing to take an initial look at it and see if there were any obvious signs of sabotage. None. He then made his way over to a control panel connected to the side of the engine. He glanced at it for a brief moment and then stepped away.

“Nothing seems to be out of place or messed with in any way.”

He then moved around his crewmates who had been hovering over his shoulder to watch and ease their anxiety over a possible sabotage. They once again followed him and he went through the same steps with the lower engine.

“Same as upper. A bit shorter on fuel but that’s not a sabotage in any way.”

Blue lightly pat the side of the engine.

“Between the four of us, sabotaging the engines would be pretty inefficient. The fuel tanks are on the outside of the ship, right below us, so that’d be a difficult and very obvious sabotage. Kinda hard to not notice someone spacewalking… And aligning the output is important of course but it’s so easily fixed and it’s really all about nav being functional. If nav is screwed up, then we can worry about engines.”

He then rubbed the back of his helmet.

“Sorry for rambling.. I just thought you guys should be aware.”

Purple put his hand on his shoulder.

“Relax. It’s helpful information.”

He then looked to the women.

“Now we can all remember that if the engines are sabotaged, it’s not one of us since we know it’d be pointless. So, like Blue said, this stays between the four of us.”

“Good point.”

Yellow chimed in.

Cyan then jolted excitedly and grabbed Blue’s arm.

“C’mon! We can get you that cookie now!”

She spoke in a tone that would’ve never given a hint of the situation that was unfolding. A bubbly optimist for sure.


	2. Chapter 2

“I don’t get it. This transport mission is already super top secret. I mean.. None of us know each others’ real names for god's sake!”

White then paused for a second.

“Excluding you two. Unless NASA somehow figured out how to wipe your minds’ of your brother’s name?”

“No, I still know Black’s real name. Unfortunately.”

Pink chuckled, all proud of himself for making such a ‘great’ joke.

White just sighed and then continued while she shoved a full clip into one of the pistols.

“Why wouldn’t NASA tell all of us..? Why not prepare us for this? We had a right to know before nearly being killed..”

Black stood up straight after setting a loaded shotgun back into the weapons cabinet to be used immediately if needed.

“Because they’re a power hungry company. That’s all. They only cared about getting that specimen back to a lab and researching it so they could make another  _ amazing _ discovery!”

He said with heavy sarcasm.

“They don’t give a fuck about us. They never did. Remember when we had a power outage because of the storm the first night we landed on that planet? Red and I called HQ and I told them how it would be too dangerous for us to stay. I wasn’t able to get anything back on - Pink couldn’t even get the shields up. Cyan had a near impossible time trying to get the signal out to NASA for longer than five minutes but those bastards still ordered us to stay there.”

He shook his head and crossed his arms over his chest.

“And you know they’re not going to take any responsibility for this either. We’re on our own to figure out who’s trying to kill us.”

White paused, glanced down, and then moved her eyes over the weapons cabinet they had. A singular weapons cabinet. She felt uneasy. Even though everyone on the ship here was trained and was a decently good shot, something was telling her it wouldn’t be enough.

“There’s nine of us and one of it. The odds should be in our favor but..”

She trailed off a bit.

“But it doesn’t feel like it.”

Pink concluded.

“Yeah… It doesn’t.”

White gulped quietly and then breathed in sharply. She had to hold it together.

“Well, nothing’s going to get done with us just standing here.”

She then brought her arm up and pressed a button on the comms system that was strapped around her wrist.

“Pink, Black, and I are coming back to the cafeteria. We have the weapons readied. Should we bring them with us so we can all arm ourselves?”

There was a brief silence before the voice of their captain broke through.

“ _ No. Make sure the cabinet is locked up and that only  _ one  _ of you has the key. Don’t tell us who. Just in case the impostor tries to go for the weapons cabinet… You three go get your suits on stat too. We don’t know if another sabotage will happen.” _

Another brief silence.

_ “I want everyone to sleep in the cafeteria tonight so bring whatever you need to make yourselves comfortable. This is what we’ll be doing until the impostor is found.” _

“Seriously..?”

Pink leaned his head back and sighed in annoyance.

“The beds here already aren’t all that comfortable. Now we have to sleep on the floor?”

“I call sleeping under a table. I ain’t letting myself be fully exposed out in the open.”

The weapons specialist then began to make her way towards the living quarters with the brothers following close behind. 

Once the three were dressed and had their things together, they went back into the cafeteria. They were the first ones there and set their stuff down wherever they wanted to sleep. White and Black were rolling out sleeping bags and nearly silenced an already quiet voice. Black looked up to see his brother, frozen and staring down at the ground.

“Huh? Did you say something?”

There was a soft mumble of words from the younger male. Black looked at his other crewmate and then they both approached him slowly.

“Pink. What’s wrong?”

He asked again.

“The vent.. is slightly open..”

His words and seeing what he was talking about caused White and Black to both freeze up as well.

“No one has any reason to open those vents.”

Black shook his head.

“And it’s nearly impossible to even  _ move  _ them because of how heavy they are. It typically takes four of us to open one and we still have to use specialized hooks to help us..”

White breathed shakily.

“What if it’s in the vents?”

“That means someone would have to be missing from a group.”

Pink then basically smashed the communication button on his suit upon hearing his brother’s words.

“Is anybody missing from their group?”

The three of them all stayed tense until a voice answered.

_ “Purple, Cyan, Yellow, and I have all been together since Red called the emergency meeting. Why?” _

_ “Green and Red have been with me the entire time too.” _

“That doesn’t make sense..”

Pink mumbled to the two crewmates with him.

“It’s just… Everyone needs to come to the cafeteria ASAP.”

After a few minutes, every one had gathered in the cafeteria and eyes were glued to the slightly ajar vent.

“Maybe the alien did that before taking over someone’s body..?”

Green hummed in disagreement with Orange.

“No. The specimen was small enough to fit through the slits of the vent. There would’ve been no reason for it to open it. This happened after it found its host.”

“But everyone has been accounted for in their groups since we were all in here.. We would’ve seen someone opening the vent..”

Cyan spoke up lightly, holding her hands up to her chest in a self-comforting fashion.

“It must’ve happened before the O2 sabotage then.”

Black looked at Cyan and then shrugged.

“If I can recall the blueprints correctly, this vent leads to weapons and admin. The impostor probably used it to get in and out of admin without being seen on the cameras.”

“That.. that makes a lot of sense then..”

The O2 technician nodded at his crewmate’s words.

“Red said that the impostor forgot to turn off the warning alarms for when the oxygen gets too low. If they sabotaged it from admin, then they wouldn’t have had the ability to turn off the alarm. You could only do that from the main system in O2.”

He then paused.

“But I’ve changed that now… I changed a lot of the system’s settings to hopefully prevent another sabotage. Hopefully..”

“Did you fix the codes?”

Purple asked.

“Because Cyan nearly died trying to get the right one typed in last time.”

“I’m working on changing the system currently. Me being the only one with the O2 codes is definitely a bad idea considering our situation. I’m trying to make it so all of you have access to turning on the oxygen if it gets shut off again. It’ll take me a little bit of time though.”

Red nodded.

“Everything else has been checked and is normal, right?”

He asked the group. Everyone acknowledged with various versions of ‘Yes’.

“Good. Let’s all try to get some sleep then, okay?”

People then began to move towards where they had set their stuff except for Cyan. She stepped up to Black and the two exchanged quick, quiet words before she jumped up excitedly. 

“Me and Black have a surprise for all of you!”

She turned to watch him walk into the kitchen and she talked a bit more timidly.

“I know the both of us said we were out of ingredients for any kind of desserts buuuuut.. we may have lied.”

She laughed briefly.

“We wanted to give them to you before we got to the docking station but considering all that has happened tonight, we agreed it’d be a nice picker-upper.”

Everyone let out light cheers and, cautiously, removed their helmets when Black brought the cookie tray around to each of them. Blue was the only one who passed seeing as Cyan already treated him to one before his group went to get their sleeping supplies.

“I think we did a good job.”

Black said with a smile to the woman beside him.

“Cheering them up, I mean. Even if it’s just a little.”

She looked up at him and nodded.

“Yeah.”

Her mood then seemed to drop out of the blue. Her eyes went down to the ground and she lowered her voice.

“One of these people here is trying to kill us and I just gave them a reward for it..”

His eyes widened slightly and his eyebrows pinched together. He had never seen her become so sad so suddenly before.

“Hey.”

The deep-brunette haired man tilted her chin up with his finger softly.

“Don’t think like that. It’s not like you're doing it knowingly. Consider it this way instead: You just gave a little extra piece of fight to nine other innocent crewmates here.”

He then smiled again.

“And hopefully sugar makes the alien feel sick.”

That got her to laugh finally.

“You know, you’re a big softie behind that tough outer shell of yours.”

“Don’t tell the others.”

Black rolled his eyes light-heartedly and then gently bit his lip.

“I know you're probably tired and stuff but do you mind if I talk to you super quick? I’ll keep it brief.”

Cyan tilted her head to the side in curiosity.

“Yeah. Of—“

“Cyan! C’mon. I’m drifting off and I don’t want to knock out before I know you’re asleep.”

Purple called out to her.

She looked over her shoulder at him and then back to the man in front of her.

“I.. should really go to him. You know how he gets. He won’t allow us a moment of privacy if I don’t go over there now. But we can talk in the morning, okay? Nothing’s going to happen tonight with all of us sleeping in the same room and keeping an eye on each other.”

She began to step away but Black caught her gently by the arm.

“Please, Cyan. Just give me two minutes. Tell him to wait.”

He pleaded quietly.

Just when she was about to open her mouth to speak, she felt herself pulled back a bit roughly. Purple shoved her behind himself and blocked Black from reaching her.

“Don’t grab her like that.”

The other man blinked in disbelief of what was just said to him.

“You're telling  _ me _ to not grab her? You just yanked her away!”

“Guys, please don’t start something.”

Yellow said from where she was standing.

“No,”

Purple took another step closer to him.

“I don’t trust you. I don’t want you around her at all, got it? For all we know, you could be the impostor.”

“What?!”

Black then pushed the other’s chest hard.

“Why the hell would you blame me? Maybe we shouldn’t be trusting  _ you _ !”

“Holy fucking shit both of you shut the fuck up before I kill you myself!”

White snapped loudly at them. Everyone went silent for a second and she looked around.

“What?”

“That’s not good phrasing to use right now, White.”

Green mentioned.

She scoffed and threw her hands up.

“Oh, now you’re suspicious of me because I wanted the testosterone fest over there to quiet down? Jesus fuck y’all aren’t giving anything a second thought.”

“Can we just..”

Cyan tugged back Purple’s arm.

“Can we just all go to sleep and stop the blame game?”

“Yes.”

Yellow said strongly.

“You‘re all on edge. The last thing we need is someone doing something drastic to someone who is innocent.”

“Listen to them.”

Red added on.

“We need sleep. We’ll discuss things in the morning when our minds are fresh.”

He then directed his gaze specifically to Black.

“Mind closing off the cafeteria doors for the night please?”

Still keeping a deadly stare at Purple, he reluctantly followed his captain’s orders. After he pushed a couple buttons on his suit’s remote system, the doors closed and he slightly dimmed the lights. Not another word was said between anyone while they tried to relax enough to fall back asleep. People tended to stay in the groups they were in earlier; Pink, Black, and White all slept nearby each other, Blue, Purple, and Cyan were together, and Yellow slept between them and the group consisting of Red, Green, and Orange.

Morning definitely wasn’t a nice one. Everyone woke up stiff and not exactly fully rested. Green and Red already had begun talking strategies the moment they rubbed their eyes open.

“I’m going to make some breakfast for all of us.”

Cyan said groggily while standing up and adjusting her suit.

“I’ll come with.”

Her ‘big brother’ said, immediately walking after her.

“Purple.”

Red waved him over.

“I need updates about our trajectory.”

“They’re fine.”

He said without pause in following Cyan.

“Purple.”

The captain said stronger, finally making the pilot stop.

“She’ll be fine without you for ten minutes. Now get over here.”

Purple gazed to his captain and then to Cyan again. She tried to give him a reassuring look but, after last night, she just felt concerned and it showed in her expression.

Blue then pat the man’s shoulder.

“I’ll look after her. Don’t worry.”

Having his co-pilot go into the kitchen with her and Black gave him just barely enough comfort to follow Red’s orders and sit at the table.

“We’re still on the same path to the docking station. What else do you need to know?”

“How long until we get there?”

“Two days.”

“Can you slow us down?”

“What?”

Purple gave him a strange look.

“Why?”

“Whatever is on this ship…”

Green started.

“It is intelligent and incredibly strong. If it was able to move that vent on its own multiple times, sabotage the oxygen, and do it all while avoiding the cameras, then it’s too dangerous to be let free. We can’t let it get to the docking station. Who knows what’ll happen if it gets a hold of the resources there.”

“I still don’t really understand why you’d want me to slow us down.”

“To give us time to figure out who the impostor is.”

Red clarified.

“If we can kill it and get it off this ship before we get to the docking station, then everything will be fine.”

Purple breathed in deeply and rubbed his forehead slowly.

“I mean.. Blue would have to slow down the engines. That’s not really my area of expertise. But I could change our course? Add a couple days on? Basically make a big circle or something.”

He shook his head.

“But we really shouldn’t push it back longer than a week. Blue mentioned that the storm took a toll on our fuel levels since the engines continuously ran to prevent us from getting blown away.”

“Hopefully we won’t need that much time to discover who it is.”

The captain said lightly. He had dark circles under his eyes that were visible since everyone had their helmets off and just next to them. It seemed as if Red hadn’t slept all night. Couldn't blame him; the safety of his crew was at stake and it was his fault.

“Captain?”

Yellow asked gently while approaching the table.

“What are we going to do if— I mean,  _ when _ we find the impostor? What are we going to do with them?”

Everyone who was in the cafeteria froze and looked at each other. Then all eyes rested on Red. 

He tilted his head down and opened his mouth to talk a few times but nothing came out. He rubbed his eyes while the absolute silence still lingered.

“I.. don’t know…”

He finally brought his eyes up to the people with him.

“You’re all very important to me.”

He said with a soft, shaky sigh. The eyes that laid upon him widened slightly. The captain rarely showed any sign of weakness.

“One of us is the impostor and no matter who it is, it’s not going to be easy to deal with it. It won’t be easy for any of us… I don’t want to lose any of my crew - even if they’re not human.”

Red hesitated to speak at first but he forced himself to get out his full thought.

“When we find them, we should restrain them and keep them locked up until we get to the docking station. From there, we can hand them off to NASA officials.”

“ _ Fuck no _ .”

White snapped. Her hands were curled into such tight fists that, if she didn’t have her suit gloves on, her nails would’ve dug deep into her palms.

“I will die before I let that thing leave this ship alive.”

Her strong voice filled the cafeteria and even caught the attention of the three in the kitchen. They poked their heads out the door to listen.

“It is trying to  _ kill _ us, Red. It nearly did. I will show no mercy. If we find it, I’ll kill it myself.”

White’s words sent shivers down the others’ spines.

“ _ It  _ is one of your friends, White.”

Green clarified just in case she had forgotten. 

“They stopped being my friend the moment they tried to kill you guys.”

Orange gently put his hand on her shoulder. She jolted slightly but relaxed when she looked at him. He softly said something to her and she nodded with a heavy sigh. It seemed to calm her temper and allow Purple to voice his opinion. 

“I.. I’m sorry but I can’t help but agree with her. If this thing is as dangerous as Green has us thinking, there’s no way we should allow it to live. And definitely not let it get onto the docking station. It could try to kill everyone there too.”

“I don't know how to kill it, though. No one does.”

The scientist told him while his arms were loosely crossed over his chest.

“But it is extremely strong.. If we try holding it in lockdown until we get to the docking station, there’s a high possibility it’ll escape and try to kill us again. So… I guess I have to agree with these two.”

Yellow just let out a stressed sigh and took a couple steps away with her hand rubbing her forehead.

Red shook his head and then shrugged his shoulders up sharply.

“Well what the hell are we supposed to do then?”

He asked with a nervous, depressed laugh while suddenly sitting down at the table.

There was a long silence. Everyone was racking their heads but no one could come up with a solution. There then was a small sniffle and a deep breath before words broke the silence.

“The airlock.”

All eyes were on the woman now.

“What?”

Orange showed visible confusion as did half the other crewmates.

“The airlock.”

Yellow repeated while she turned around to face them all. It was obvious in her expression that she hated her own thought process but she pushed the words out anyways.

“It’s the only way. We find the impostor, shove its ass into the airlock, and push the button that’ll send them flying into space. It’s the only way to nearly guarantee our and the station’s safety.”

The doctor then rubbed her arm slowly.

“And it’s the most humane.. If this alien relies on a human host, it’ll die with them. They’ll get shot into space, the oxygen in their suit will eventually deplete, then the body goes unconscious and suffocates.”

“That.. just might work..”

Green said with a soft nod.

There was a heavy tone to the room but it seemed that everyone agreed.

“So, I guess we have our means of extermination. Now,”

Red folded his arms on the table and glanced around.

“we just have to figure out who it is.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know everything’s a bit slow right now with the story but I promise it’s going to pick up soon!  
> also, if you have any suspicions as to who the impostor is, leave a comment!!


	3. Chapter 3

The weight of the topic seemed to ease away a few minutes later when Cyan and Black brought out breakfast to everyone. They had dehydrated sausages and small pancakes were made from some of the dry cooking supplies they had. Once there was food in their bellies, everyone was just a bit happier and a little less on edge. They tossed their used plates and utensils in the garbage and then all gathered close together in the cafeteria again. Green set down his notebook on the table in front of him and flipped through a few pages.

“We have barely any information of what this alien is fully capable of. And we don’t know if it varies specimen to specimen. All we have to go off of is the report that woman made.”

He lightly trailed his finger over the page and glazed over the words.

“We all already know, just from our own observations, that it’s incredibly strong and has some sort of intellectual capabilities. Before this mission, NASA had sent Red and I the details of what the woman encountered... ‘It went on a rage. But not like a rage that you’d see humans go through. There was no anger. It was just utter murderous determination. When we’d try to throw things down in front of it so it couldn’t get to us.. We saw its hands literally tear through solid metal to find us. And when it—“

Green paused and then took a deep breath before continuing.

“...‘when it killed Brown.. It didn’t even react. There was no emotion behind it. As if every speck of humanity had already been destroyed.’”

A couple crewmates shook their head after he stopped and Cyan spoke up in the brief silence.

“How did she get away from the impostor?”

The man reading off the report turned his eyes from Cyan to the pages again. A few seconds of searching passed and then he began reading again.

“‘I had to hide in a storage box for hours before I was able to muster up the courage to run again. After having to watch Brown die like that.. to be torn in half.. I’m surprised I didn’t fill that box with my own puke. I made my way to the escape pods without him seeing me but as I started to set off the extra ones so he couldn’t follow me, he knew where I was and I could hear him in the vents coming to get me. I had barely had enough time to throw myself into a pod and launch it before he tried to grab me. I had never felt happier than when I was drifting away from that godforsaken ship.’”

“So, she just had to abandon ship?”

“NASA then destroyed the ship from a nearby base when she was rescued and was able to message them.”

Red added on. 

“Wait a minute..”

Pink eyes darted around on the floor and then widened while he quickly approached the captain.

“Have you told NASA about what’s happened here?”

“No, I was planning on—“

“Don’t! Do  _ not _ tell them, got it?”

“Hey,”

His brother lightly put his hand on his shoulder.

“why are you freaking out?”

The younger shoved his hand off and then snapped back to Red.

“Because NASA will blow our asses out of the sky if they know the specimen took one of us over! All they know right now is that this thing is dangerous and they only got rid of it by destroying an entire ship. They’ll do the exact same to us if we can’t handle this on our own first.”

Cyan bit her lip softly.

“NASA usually asks for a daily update on things. They want all the details about the ship’s status and our flight path. Sure, we could hide the fact that there’s an alien loose on our ship but how are we going to hide the O2 sabotage? Or not let them know when we’ve changed course?”

“Cut off the comms.”

“Huh?”

“Cut off the comms.”

Red repeated. It was a shock to everyone to hear this from him. He never broke the rules. Ever.

“If what Pink suspects is true - which it probably is - then we can’t let NASA get in contact with us. We can’t just lie to them. They’ll probably see through it eventually. But if we just drop off the grid for a while, we should be in the clear until we know for sure we’re safe.”

“I could shut off our trackers too. Though..”

Purple breathed in deeply.

“if something happens to us out here, we’re completely on our own. No one will ever be able to find us. Not even NASA is good enough to do that.”

“Okay. That’s what we’re doing then.”

The captain nodded and looked to the rest of the crew.

“Any objections?”

Everyone looked at each other and then shook their heads.

“Good. Purple, you take Orange and Blue with you to nav to shut off the trackers. Black, divert the electrical to shields and then have Pink adjust them to max power just in case things get rough when we go off course. Yellow and Green, join them. White and Cyan, you’re with me.”

The crewmates didn’t argue with his plan at all. Of course, though, there was a slight nonverbal resistance from Purple when he was to be separated from Cyan again. He gave her a tight hug before taking his group to nav and letting her join Red.

“I was thinking…”

Yellow started while walking with her group to electrical.

“Maybe you and I could take blood samples from everyone? Surely there has to be some sort of difference between our blood and the impostor’s blood, right?”

She asked Green.

“Yeah, that may be a good idea. Maybe you could do body scans too? Just to cover all the bases.”

“It’ll take a few days for everything to process on the computers but that could definitely be done.”

“What if there’s no difference between us and the impostor?”

Pink questioned.

“Let’s not ask those kinds of questions yet.”

Black quickly said. He turned the corner and went into the electrical room. The other three kind of hung out behind him while he pulled open one of the panels. He sighed softly and his helmet lightly thunked against the wall when he leaned against it.

“Black?”

Pink stepped up behind him and poked his arm.

“What are you doing? We gotta jump on these tasks.”

“I don’t know what to do.”

“What do you mean? Don’t you just like.. flip a switch or something..?”

He tried to glance around his brother to see the panel and if he could do it himself.

“Not the electrical!”

He snapped and sent his fist flying into the wall. Black then quickly took a deep breath to calm himself.

“Oh you mean…?”

“Yes of course that’s what I’m talking about.”

He answered defeatedly.

“This whole situation is stressing me out that I’m going to lose it.”

“Lose what?”

Green asked with a raised eyebrow.

Black breathed in again and stood up straight. He pushed up the slider to divert the power and closed the panel with a slam.

“Nothing.”

He said sharply while walking passed the others and out the room.

Yellow and Green stood there for a second and then Pink pat them both on the shoulder.

“Don’t worry about it. He just doesn’t like that the stress is making his soft side get exposed.”

He whispered in a teasing manner. 

“C’mon.”

The three then joined Black walking through the hallways towards shields. On their way there, they passed the comms room.

“When will NASA realize they’ve lost us on comms?”

Red asked, standing behind Cyan who was sitting in a chair in front of the comm system. 

“Immediately.”

She responded softly.

“We probably shouldn’t turn them off until Purple turns off the trackers, in my opinion.”

Red nodded.

“After this, we’re going over to weapons and doing a full check.”

He glanced back at White.

“Hey. Hey! You got that?”

She jolted when she heard his voice and then nodded.

“Oh. Yeah, yeah. I got it. Weapons check.”

She then waved him off while she leaned against the wall and zoned out. She was close with everyone on this ship but she was quickly burning her bridges with them in her mind. Red’s was basically ash by now. Green’s was following close behind. Purple’s was more or less beginning to burn after last night but everyone else’s was still intact.The more disconnected from them that she could get, the easier it would be to kill the impostor; whoever that may be. She was quite close with Black and Pink though. The three of them connected almost immediately during training and they tended to be on the same page with most things. Their brotherly antics were also very entertaining to her. Hopefully it wasn’t either one of them... She then glanced down and pushed a couple buttons on her comms system attached to her suit.

“Hey.”

Blue’s ears perked up upon hearing her voice through the speakers in his helmet.

_ “What’s up?” _

“I’m bored and every moment I’m with Red I want to make his face meet my knee at a very high velocity.”

He chuckled.

_ “That’d be a sight.” _

She was grateful for the ability to have private chats with crewmembers. Her voice was blocked out from exiting her helmet so Blue was the only one able to hear her. Hence why she could rant about her intense irritation towards the captain.

“How are things going over there?”

_ “Purple is nitpicking about the ship’s course and Orange has his tablet so he’s working on the O2 system as much as he can. I’m just kinda.. sitting here?” _

“Wait, aren’t you the co-pilot though? Shouldn’t you be helping Purple?”

_ “I don’t know the nav system as well as he does. I can work it but it’s not my speciality. I’m better at just listening to what he tells me to do.” _

He hummed softly.

_ “Did Cyan cut communication with NASA yet?” _

“No.”

She sighed.

“She told us that it’d be better for Purple to shut off the trackers first. I didn’t listen to why though.”

_ “Couldn't be bothered to, huh?” _

“Fuck off.”

White laughed and then crossed her arms over her chest loosely.

_ “You know,” _

Blue’s voice trailed off a bit awkwardly.

_ “I don’t mind that you called me but there’s so many others to talk to. Why me? I mean, you always seem to stick close with Black and Pink.” _

She was thrown off by his question and it caused her to pause for a bit.

“Uh.. I don’t know. Black, Pink, and Purple are busy with their tasks, I don’t trust Green, and I’m not really sure how Yellow or Orange would respond to me bashing on their captain. Sooo basically you were my last resort.”

She teased after regaining her thoughts.

_ “I feel so honored.” _

He laughed and then groaned.

_ “Dammit. You jinxed me. Purple needs my help. I’ll pass on the message that he needs to turn off the trackers ASAP though.” _

“Okay, good luck.”

Blue was about to turn off the comms and then quickly added on;

_ “Stay safe.” _

The speakers made a soft ‘click’ and White knew the private channel had been closed. She sighed and focused in on Red and Cyan’s conversation now.

“We can’t do that, Cyan.”

“Why not?”

“Because it'll either not work or it will get someone killed. Or both.”

“Woah, woah, hold on a minute.”

White cut in.

“What are we talking about again?”

Red leaned his head back slightly with a huff.

“Cyan wants to set a trap for the impostor.”

“I could be the bait! I’ll go to security - there’s a vent in there - and wait until the impostor comes for me. When they do, you guys can just ambush them and take them to the airlock.”

“Cyan.. I— As much as I don’t want to agree with Red, that is actually a really bad idea.. This thing is intelligent and extremely strong. You could just get dragged into a vent and we wouldn’t be able to help you.”

White gently said.

Cyan tilted her head down and gripped her fists together tightly.

“I’m not fragile, you know!”

She snapped and the other two stepped back in surprise.

“I can defend myself! Just because Purple is overprotective doesn’t mean I  _ need _ protecting. I’m smart too. I’d like to see the impostor outsmart me.”

She said with a burning passion that had never been seen before.

“But fine. Don’t take my advice. Just brush it off like I’m some ten year old innocent little girl.”

“Cyan—“

Red started but then was cut off by Blue’s voice over all their comms.

“ _ Purple has the new course ready to go and can turn off the trackers now. You guys ready in comms? _ ”

“We’re ready.”

The woman in front of the screens answered.

“ _ Okay. Trackers going off in three.. two.. one. _ ”

On one, Cyan pressed a couple buttons quickly and the comm screens went dark.

“Comms are off. Are trackers?”

“ _Yeah. We’re good._ _Purple’s going to start our new course now. It’ll give us five extra days before we get to the station._ ”

“Copy that.”

Red answered.

“Let’s head to weapons now, alright?”

Both women gave him the silent treatment and then just left the room in front of him. He still followed close behind and glanced to the side as he saw the group of four standing by the shields system. Black’s body perked up and then he quickly went over to the three passing by.

“Cyan.”

He called out gently, getting her to turn towards him.

“Can I steal you for just a minute? Please? We’ll stay in sight of everyone I just wanted to talk.”

Without even asking for permission from her captain, she nodded.

“Yeah.”

She then stepped away with Black and Red sighed with an ever so slight irritation. 

“Yellow, come with us.”

He requested.

“Green and I were going to go to the medbay after this to set up some testing..”

She said gently.

“You guys can both come along then and go there after White and I are done with weapons. Sound good?”

The two looked at each other, shrugged, and then joined their captain. After they left and Pink was the only other one accompanying them, Black took off his helmet which immediately made Cyan tense.

“What are you doing?”

“I’ll be fine. I have my helmet in my hand here so even if something happens, it’ll take me ten seconds to put it back on.”

He smiled softly and then lightly nudged her arm.

“What’s got you serious anyways?”

He asked playfully, unaware of what happened in the comms room.

She hesitantly pulled off her helmet as well and sighed.

“Red just got on my nerves is all..”

Black fell back into his mature manner quickly.

“What happened?”

“Nothing. He’s just.. being a pretentious dick.”

Cyan huffed.

“The things he says and does… I can’t help but feel uneasy around him. And I’ve never felt that way before with him. I can’t help but wonder..”

“If Red is the impostor, we’ll be fine. His giant ass marine steps can be heard from across the ship. If he was trying to kill one of us, I think it’d literally be impossible to not hear him getting close.”

She finally giggled and some of the tension left her body.

“I guess you're right. I hope it’ll be that easy to figure out who it is.”

She then shook her head and looked up to Black.

“Sorry. We got off track. What did you want to talk about?”

“Right.”

He rubbed the back of his neck and paused for a bit. His eyes gazed over Cyan’s ear-length wavy blonde hair and lightly freckled cheeks. She had gentle hazel eyes and a little scar across the top of her left cheekbone from a soccer injury when she was young. He referred to it as her ‘battle wound’ and it’d always make her smile. Even though she smiled all the time and laughed easily, he appreciated her reaction to his terrible joke.

“I know that there are rules NASA has laid out for us about this trip.  _ Many _ rules. For instance.. ones about relationships.. I know it’s against the rules but I—“

Black paused and saw in her eyes that she almost knew what was coming next. He couldn’t do it.

“I wanted to ask if you could tell me your real name..”

Her expression changed and showed he had thrown her off her original train of thought. Thank god.

“Oh.”

She hummed and put her finger on her chin in thought.

“We’re really not supposed to know each others’ names..”

She reminded him.

“I know, I know. I just thought I’d take the jump and ask anyways.. It’s okay. Just forget it.”

Black then brought up his helmet and started to put it back over his head. He stopped when her hands caught his helmet and pushed it up a bit. Cyan went up on her tippy toes and whispered in his ear with a sweet smile on her lips. She then stood back normally and released his helmet.

“That’s..”

“Shh.”

She quickly said.

“I never told you anything.”

She laughed lightly and patted the side of his helmet.

“Do.. Do you want to know mine?”

Cyan turned and began walking away.

“In time.”

Black then quickly caught up to her and asked before they got within earshot of Pink.

“Does Purple know?”

“You think I just give my name out to everyone? No. Purple doesn’t know.”

She answered him with a light laugh before pulling her helmet back on.

“How’s it goin’?”

The woman directed the question to Pink who was working away at the shields system.

“Almost..”

He tapped multiple times over the screen and a soft whirring sound echoed through the ship.

“There.”

Turning on his communicator, he spoke into it clearly.

“Shields are up and going at 100%. We should have--”

All eyes widened from behind their helmets when everything started going dark. Black grabbed both his younger brother and Cyan and put them safely behind him.

“What’s going on?”   
She asked nervously, her voice cracking while she gripped the electrician’s arm like her life depended on it. It quite possibly could have.

“Nothing good.”   
He answered just when the last bit of light was eaten up by the darkness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’d love for you guys to tell me who you think the impostor is!! (if you even have any suspicions yet)


	4. Chapter 4

“Turn on your helmet lights.”   
Black directed and the other two followed. The lights attached to the helmets barely allowed them to see three feet ahead of them but it was better than nothing.

“ _ Black, what happened? _ ”

“I honestly don’t know, Captain. Is anyone missing from their groups?”

There was a brief silence before two answers overlapped each other.

“We’re all here.” and “No one’s missing.”

“That doesn’t make any sense..”

He mumbled to himself before speaking to the whole crew again.

“This shouldn’t be possible.  _ I _ am the only one able to remotely control electrical and I don’t have any of my programs up and running right now.”

Black huffed.

“Someone come over here and take Pink and Cyan with them. I’ll go handle the electricity.”

A multitude of “No!”s came from both the comms and the two people behind him.

_ “No one is allowed to be alone, Black.” _

Blue reminded him strongly.

“I’m not subjecting anyone to this kind of danger. Especially not my own brother and Cyan.”

“Black..”

She whispered softly while squeezing his arm.

Pink stepped out from behind him suddenly.

“I can help you! I don’t need to be baby-sat!”   
  


“Both of you are staying behind and that’s the end of it!”   
He snapped harshly before muting his comm for a moment.

“I refuse to lose either one of you, got it? I’m not letting it happen!”

Cyan stayed silent and Pink just shook his head.

“Someone get over here. Cyan and I are going to nav.”

He said coldly over the comms while grabbing the woman’s arm lightly and pulling her along.

Black watched while they disappeared around a corner. He felt a slight twinge of guilt for being as gentle as sandpaper with them. He knew that it was for the best though. He wouldn’t be able to function if he lost either one of them. His eyes blinked a few times when the darkness was broken by dim headlamps.

“You know, as much as I hate this situation, I’m appreciative of it because it got me away from Red.”

White sighed in relief and stretched her arms upwards.

“I think your comms might still be on, White.”

Blue pointed out.

She froze for a moment, shrugged, and then finished out her upwards stretch.

“Eh.”

She hummed light-heartedly and then switched her comms so only the two men she was with could hear her.

“You guys okay with talking to everyone else? I’m closing off my mic to all but you two.”

“Yeah, that’s fine.”

Black said while gesturing for them to follow him down the hallway. He paused when they arrived at the entrance to the electrical room.

“What is it?”

He sighed softly at White’s question.

“All of this just makes me uneasy.”

“Everyone is with their groups. Shouldn’t it be okay?”

Blue asked.

“I guess so..”

The three then walked into electrical with their lights barely showing the way. Their eyes were caught by a few blinking lights on panels and Black made sure to usher Blue and White close by before he started.

“Could you shine the light over here for me?”

White nodded and stepped forward more, making sure the light was on the wiring he had his hands in.

“Jesus that’s a mess.”

“Yeah..”

He huffed and tugged at some of the wires to try and untangle them.

“This was definitely purposeful. The wires are cut all over the place. This does make a lot more sense though.”

“ _ Why’s that? _ ”

Red’s voice made him jolt as he had forgotten he had his comms open still.

“The lights didn’t go out because someone was controlling them remotely. They had been cut a while ago and the backup generators have been keeping the power on for now. The generators shut down the lights to try and conserve energy. I should’ve received a notification about all this though..”

“ _ It’s smart, remember? It probably turned off the notification system.” _

Green added in.

_ “Whatever. Just.. Can you get it fixed already? I’m sick of being in the dark.” _

Black abruptly stopped what he was doing. 

“You wanna come down here and fix the electrical for us, Purple? Huh? Let’s see  _ you  _ do better!”

White then smacked him upside the head. And not gently either. She opened up her comms to everyone just brief enough that she got her words out.

“You guys can compare dick sizes later. Let’s just get this shit done, okay?”

“Fine..”

He grumbled, shaking his head lightly to regain composure from being hit. Even with his helmet on it still rattled him. It took him about twenty minutes to put the wires in the right spots and tape them together correctly and safely. He then went and pulled open a large panel that was in the middle of the room facing the door.

“Moment of truth.”

He said before flipping a few, stubborn switches. Darkness still lingered and just when he thought he’d have to go back to the drawing board the lights blinked back on.

_ “Good job. Everyone check on their stations and make sure the power outage didn’t affect anything.” _

Red ordered over the comms.

“I’m going to go over every inch of the electrical system.”

Black said after changing his communication to only White and Blue.

“You two should go do your things because this is going to take a while.”

“No one stays alone.”

Blue immediately reminded him.

“I’ll stay. Engines are fine. White, you should go check on the weapons system though. It might be detrimental to us if we lose them.”

“I can’t leave you guys alone either. I’m not saying that one of you is the impostor but if you are.. Then one of you will most likely die. And I’m not willing to risk that.”

Black huffed but didn’t argue with them. He definitely wasn’t going to win against White anyways. Stubborn bitch. He loved her though. She had become his best friend and he respected her the most out of everyone on the ship. He strongly believed that she should’ve been the captain, not Red. After about an hour and a half, he stopped and shut the panel he had been working on.

“You're done already?”

Blue asked. He was sitting on the floor leaning up against the back of the electrical structures that were closer to the entrance. White was laying on her back to the side of him.

“No.”

Black sat down and then laid back tiredly.

“I’ll probably have to finish after dinner. This is just too much to do and my mind can’t process anything anymore. I at least got my notification system up and running though...”

White crawled over to him and flopped her body heavily over his abdomen which made him groan and cough slightly but laugh after.

“I take it you're tired too?”

“Extremely.”

She said in the middle of a yawn.

“I barely slept last night and it doesn’t help that watching you dig through wires and tap screens is boring as fuck.”

“You guys.. are weird.”

Blue chuckled lightly.

“You two have a thing, don’t you?”

Both White and Black snapped up. Black stumbled over his words to deny it while White began laughing hysterically. She took her helmet off and wiped the tears from her face.

“Us?”

She breathed in deeply to catch her breath from laughing so hard.

“Dude, Blue.”

“What? Am I wrong?”

He genuinely asked.

“You're so dense.”

She looked over to her best friend who also took his helmet off and pointed his finger at her.

“Don’t say it—“

“He’s got the hots  _ bad  _ for Cyan.”

“Bitch!”

He threw his helmet right at her chest but she caught it and started laughing again.

Blue couldn’t help but laugh a bit too after removing his helmet.

“Really? I feel like you two have clashing personalities. She’s such a softie and you - well at least I thought - aren’t.”

He sighed and ran his fingers through his hair, tilting his head down to try and hide his embarrassment.

“She’s the only one I cave for..”

“No wonder you and Purple go at it all the time. I just thought there was a general hatred between you two.”

“Yeah.”

Black rolled his eyes.

“It’s really impossible for me to get her away from him. The only time I’d get was when we were in the kitchen but now he sends a bodyguard in with her all the time.”

“Did you tell her yet?”

White asked.

He paused and shook his head.

“No. I did ask for her name though.”

The other two looked at each other worriedly and then back to him.

“Did she.. tell you?”

Blue slowly questioned.

Black brought his head back up.

“She didn’t.”

It was a lie but he didn’t see it that way. He saw it as a special secret between just him and Cyan. Somehow he felt as if it was her way of saying she had the same feelings for him.

“Good.”

White quickly responded.

_ “Everyone take a break. Come to the cafeteria so we can discuss our next plan of action.” _

Red said over the comms. He sounded tired but then again, so was everyone else.

After they had all gathered once more, they began to try and figure out what to do.

“It’s been two days and all that’s happened was the O2 and electricity outages. Maybe.. Maybe it was just a legitimate ship malfunction?”

Cyan suggested softly.

“You’re so naive..”

Green mumbled under his breath.

“The fuck did you say?”

Purple snapped with an unamused laugh while clenching his fist tightly. Cyan tugged his arm and he held back.

“It would’ve been impossible for the electrical wires to cut themselves..”

Black reminded her and everyone else in the cafeteria.

“Not to mention that my notification system was turned off. I would never have turned that off for any reason.”

Yellow sighed.

“I’m sorry, Cyan. I know you, and most likely all of us, want to believe that we’re safe. But we’re not. There  _ is _ an impostor among us who is trying to kill us. But,”

The older woman gestured to Green. 

“we’ve come up with two possible solutions. In the med bay there’s a scanner as well as a place for us to examine blood samples. We’re unsure if there’s a discrepancy between us and the impostor in regards to skeletal and blood systems but there could be. We’ll need everyone to submit a scan and blood samples later. Hopefully that’ll give us some answers.”

“Later? Why not right now? Let’s just get it done and over with and throw the bastard who comes back abnormal into the airlock!”

Pink said after slamming his fist down on the table beside him.

“I’m sick of this waiting game! I can’t handle us just running around desperately fixing sabotages while also having to look over our shoulders constantly. The feeling of not being able to trust the very people I’d die for is tearing me apart.”

His voice cracked softly at the end of his sentence and Yellow approached him to bring him into a comforting hug. She had become somewhat of a motherly figure to him so he allowed his walls to break down a bit and hug her back.

Being preoccupied in a suffocating hug, Green continued on for the doctor.

“Even with both of us working on it, it’ll take a while for us to set up since we basically have to reprogram the systems. We’ll try to get it up and running by tomorrow afternoon but no promises.”

“Is there anything we can do to help?”

“You just worry about getting oxygen in our lungs, Orange.”

Red sighed quietly and pulled his helmet off, setting it on the ground to the side of him.

“It’s been a long, stressful day. Let’s get some food in us and then try to get some sleep and we’ll work on finding the impostor tomorrow.”

“You're acting a bit too cool about this..”

Purple crossed his arms over his chest suspiciously. 

“I’m just trying to keep everything calm.”

“Yeah. Well, I’ve got my eye on you, ‘Captain’.”

“Can you just like.. shut the fuck up?”

Black groaned.

“Oh? Are you taking his side now, Black? Maybe I should keep my eye on  _ you _ then!”

He shoved the other man’s shoulders hard, making him stumble back.

The electrician caught himself on one of the tables and ripped his helmet off, throwing it to the ground.

“Maybe you're the one we need to watch out for since you constantly blame everyone but yourself!”

“Guys please st—“

Cyan was cut off at the loud sound of Purple tossing his helmet down as well and lunging his fist towards Black’s face. It missed and he was instead met with Black slamming into his torso and throwing him to the ground. He was stunned on his back for a moment as the breath had been knocked out of him. He attempted to sit up, only to be kicked back down by the other man.

“Just stay down! It was about time someone beat you off your high horse.”

The nav specialist then rolled onto his stomach. He stayed still briefly and twisted his body suddenly; sweeping Black’s legs out from under him. The moment he hit the ground, Purple jumped on top of him and made sure his punch didn’t miss its target this time. He got in a few good, hard punches before a blow to the head rendered him immediately unconscious. Black groaned painfully and opened his eyes as best as he could to see Cyan standing above Purple holding his helmet. Her eyes were full of tears and the helmet made a loud bang on the floor when she dropped it. Black didn’t see much of what happened next but heard people calling out for Cyan. 

“Black!”

His brother rushed to his side and went to touch him but was halted by Yellow’s orders.

“Don’t!”

She kneeled down next to the injured man and carefully glanced over his bloodied face.

“Hey, hey. C’mon. Stay with it. What’s your name? Your  _ codename _ .”

She specified quickly.

“B..Black. Where’s Cyan..?”

He tried to sit up and look for her but was gently held down by both his brother and the doctor.

“They’re looking for her. Just relax. Do you know where you are?”

While Yellow continued on with her levels-of-awareness questions, everyone else had split up to search for Cyan who had bolted out of the cafeteria. She hadn’t got that much of a start on them but they still somehow couldn’t find her. The whole ‘groups of at least three’ standard had totally flown out the window since everyone didn’t leave at the same time or even go the same direction. They wanted to make sure Cyan wasn’t alone. But she was. The woman was shaking hard while she stayed hidden under a desk counter in comms. Her sobs were stifled since she didn’t want attention to be drawn to herself. She couldn’t believe she had done such a thing. She hurt someone who had always protected her…

“Cyan?”

She quickly pulled her helmet back on over her head to try and keep her sniffles silent.

“I know you're in here.”

The voice repeated with a gentle sigh.

“Come out, please? We’re all worried about you.”

There was complete silence until she finally broke and pulled her helmet off once again since she had been found.

“I can’t do this anymore..”

Her voice cracked while she spoke shakily.

“The stress is overwhelming enough but seeing everyone turning on each other is even worse.”

Cyan breathed in as deeply as she could.

“I’m so scared.”

“Then it’s best to not be alone. Especially when there’s a killer on the loose.”

She looked up from under her little sanctuary.

“Yeah...”

Just when she crawled out and stood up, darkness overtook the entire ship once again. She quickly stepped closer to where she had seen her fellow crewmate.

“Oh god. The electricity’s out and Black isn’t in any state to fix it! We need to try and find the others.”

Cyan choked out another sob and scoffed at herself.

“Such a reckless decision to run off on my own..”

She then took a step towards the door to leave.

“Come o— Hey—“

The woman winced from the feeling of being grabbed tightly on the shoulder.

“You’re holding me kinda har— Ah! That hurts!”

She gasped and collapsed onto her knees. No noise was able to leave her mouth due to the extreme pain she felt while her collarbone had begun to break under the strong grip.

“You’re right. It really was a reckless decision.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> comment your suspicions!


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry for the late update! I’ll post twice this week to make up for it :’)

“What the hell do you mean no one else knows how to fix the electricity?! We have a backup person for literally every section of the ship but not the fucking electricity?”

Green yelled over the comms while running through the hallways, desperate to find anyone else in the darkness.

_ “I can try to fix it but I don’t know how well I’ll be able to. I’ve only briefly watched my brother work before.” _

Pink suggested as calmly as he could. It didn’t work great though. Everyone knew he was panicking but then again so was the entire crew. 

_ “No! Everyone meet in the cafeteria. We need to get into groups and stay together.” _

Red quickly demanded. 

Though everyone was hesitant to follow his orders and not fix the electricity first, they listened anyways. The lights suddenly flickered back on without prompting which relieved but also worried all of them at the same time.

_ “Back up gens.. on again.” _

Black slurred over the comms.

_ “I’m taking Black to the med bay and Pink is coming with me.” _

_ “Okay. Everyone else go to the cafeteria as planned.” _

Red called out, even the comms being unable to hide the worry that overtook his tone.

_ “What about Cyan?” _

Orange asked gently.

_ “If she's smart she’ll find us in the cafeteria. Everyone get there now.” _

No one really wanted to ditch the efforts to find Cyan but Red was right. They needed to all gather together to keep themselves safe. The captain did a quick count of the people he saw in front of him and sighed.

“She’s still gone. We won’t stop looking for her but we have to also see the bigger picture. The backup generators are all that's keeping the electricity on. They can’t stay on forever so we need to finish what Black was trying to fix.”

He took off his helmet and the dark circles under his eyes had begun to make themselves known.

“Green, go help Yellow with Black and make sure Pink comes here. We need to get the regular electricity working before we can do anything else.”

He sat down at one of the tables and patted the top lightly.

“Everyone else sit and keep an eye on each other. Green and Pink should be safe alone if we all stay here and are accounted for.”

“Should.. Should I take Purple with me?”

Green asked with a raised eyebrow.

“Oh.”

Red blinked and took a deep breath in.

“Yeah. I suppose you should.”

White laughed sharply.

“Sorry, sorry.”

She giggled briefly again.

“I just found it funny that you literally forgot one of your crewmates was knocked out.”

“White..”

Orange looked at her and shook his head slowly.

“What? Purple was beating my best friend into the ground. He deserved to get knocked out. Even more so by Cyan. I can’t wait to see the look on his face when he finds out.”

“Blue, would you mind helping me get Purple to medbay?”

The scientist asked quickly to change the subject while he walked over to the unconscious man. 

The two men picked up Purple from under his arms and let his feet trail behind him while they dragged him out of the cafeteria. Thankfully, it wasn’t too far to medbay. They lifted him onto a bed once they were in there and Green walked over to see Yellow tending to Black who was in and out of consciousness.

“He might have a moderate concussion. I’m guessing he hit his head falling to the ground after Purple knocked his legs out from under him. The punches definitely didn’t help either..”

Yellow sighed, setting aside bloody towels that she used to wipe his face clean. His nose had been bleeding a good amount and both his lip and eyebrow were split.

“There’s not a whole lot I can do for him except give him pain meds and butterfly bandage his eyebrow.”

Green hummed and nodded before glancing to Pink. He was gripping his brother’s arm and intensely watching his chest rise and fall to make sure he continued breathing.

“Red wants you to go try to fix electrical.”

“No.”

He answered immediately without taking his eyes off his brother.

“It can wait until he’s stable.”

“Sweetie..”

Yellow started gently, reaching over and placing her hand over Pink’s. 

“He is stable. He’s going to be fine. He just needs rest. Now go on.”

He was extremely hesitant but was finally able to pull himself away from his brother. Blue led him back to the cafeteria while Green stayed behind with Yellow. 

Red was already attempting to split people up when they walked in.

“Pink. I want you to go with White and Blue. I’m going to stick with Orange while he works on O2.”

“Wait a minute.”

White spoke up when she realized it.

“No groups of two or less. We can’t leave anyone alone.”

“There’s five of us, White. How would you like us to be split up?”

“Not split up at all.”

She said with arms crossed over her chest.

“Yeah.. No offense Captain, but I would like to stay in groups more than two.”

Orange laughed awkwardly while rubbing the back of his neck.

He nodded.

“You’re right. We need to stay together. I guess all of us will go to electrical then?”

“You guys could probably help me if I come across an issue anyways.”

Pink began to walk out of the cafeteria towards the storage area. The others followed.

“Now, I’m not amazing at this stuff so I’ll probably only be able to fix very, very baseline stuff, okay? As soon as my brother regains his ability to work, he has to do the rest.”

“Knowing him, he’ll bounce back quick.”

White reassured them, but mainly Pink.

Once in electrical, the young male began looking over what needed to be fixed and what was within his ability to do. The other four stayed close to themselves.

“Cyan still hasn’t shown up anywhere or even made herself known over the comms. I’m getting kind of worried.”

Orange whispered gently.

“Purple is going to lose his shit if he finds out.”

They nodded in agreement with Blue.

“We need to find her before he wakes up.”

“So.. Do we go look for her after this then? Or are we just going to be hopeful she waltzes into the cafeteria eventually?”

The weapons specialist asked.

“She’s not going to find us. We need to find her.”

Pink voiced his opinion even though the others thought he hadn’t heard the conversation.

“But just keep this in the back of your minds: If anything outside of the medbay and electrical gets sabotaged.. There’s only one person who could’ve done it.”

“Wait..”

White scoffed lightly in disbelief.

“Are you suggesting that  _ Cyan _ is the impostor?”

“Why couldn’t she be? If this alien thing can take over our bodies and make us unnaturally strong, she could be the impostor. Not to mention that she’s small and could fit through the vents easier than the rest of us.”

They fell silent at the thought and shifted uncomfortably. That was the first real accusation made against anyone. Before, the accusations had been made just because people were arguing with each other but Pink had genuine suspicions now. An uncomfortable silence fell over the five of them. No one said anything else about it and the only words that were exchanged were about the electricity when Pink asked for help. After nearly two hours, he had done everything he possibly could.

“How’s my brother?”

_ “He’s fine.The pain meds I gave him made him a bit tired but he seems to be waking up more now.” _

Yellow answered.

“Okay. I was able to get half of the electricity to not rely on the generators but he’ll need to do the rest later. I can’t figure out the other half.”

Pink then began to leave.

“I’m coming back to med bay. I think everyone else is going to try and find Cyan.”

_ “Don’t travel alone, Pink. Go with the others to help find Cyan t--” _

There was a muffled voice in the background that made her stop mid-sentence.

_ “It’s okay, it’s fine, Purple.” _

_ “No! What the fuck did you mean by ‘find Cyan’?” _

He asked angrily, loud enough that everyone could hear his voice over Yellow’s communicator.

“Oh shit..”

Blue mumbled.

_ “Purple, sit back down.” _

Green demanded strongly.

_ “Fuck off! I’m finding her  _ **_now_ ** _.” _

_ “Someone please find him and be with him so he doesn’t get hurt. He turned towards the cafeteria.” _

Yellow sighed heavily and then groaned. Black had been ushered more awake by Purple’s yelling and his own realization that Cyan was missing. Now he was trying to get up as well. The five who were still in electrical left promptly and ran into Purple right at the top of storage. Blue quickly approached him and stopped him.

“You need to relax. You just got knocked out and probably have a concussion.”

He said, trying to reason with him somewhat.

“We can find Cyan. You need to take care of yourself for the moment being.”

The pilot tried to shove passed Blue but in his current state, he couldn’t; his friend easily held him back by the shoulders.

“You won’t find her!”

He yelled while trying to move forward again.

“I know where she goes to hide! Please, I just..I just need to make sure she’s safe.”

His voice cracked at the end of his sentence and it was obvious that he was desperate.

White lightly put her hands on both men’s arms.

“Okay. Come on, we’ll all go find her.”

When Blue and White began walking with Purple, Pink suddenly bolted passed them. Coming down the hallway was Yellow and Green holding Black under the arms while he trudged along.

“He heard Cyan was missing.”

Yellow said, holding Purple’s helmet that he had left behind in her free hand.

“I couldn’t convince him to stay.”

Pink then traded spots with Yellow and nodded.

“Alright, fine. Let’s just hurry and find her so both of these messed up guys can actually sit down and heal.”

Yellow carefully put the pilot’s helmet back on him and then let him continue walking. Everyone followed after him in hopes of finally finding their missing crewmate. 

“In here.”

White and Blue led him through the comms doorway and then huffed. The lights were out and a soft yellow glow was coming from around a panel on the wall.

“Hold on. I got this.”

Pink made sure his brother was steady before letting go of him and popping open the panel. He flipped a switch to accept the electricity he had diverted from electrical to there. The lights flickered on and his eyebrows pinched together.

“She’s not in here.”

Purple pushed off of White and Blue and shook his head.

“Yes she is.”

He knelt down on the ground beside a desk and pulled the chair away from it. He let out a sigh of relief when he saw his sweet ‘little sister’ sitting under the desk with her helmet on.

“Cyan, why did you run off?”

He touched her hand. No response.

“Cyan.”

He then held her arm and gently tugged on it. She didn’t respond again nor did she move. Purple’s heart began to beat quicker. He took off his helmet and he reached under the desk to grab both her shoulders.

“Cyan!”

When he shook her shoulders, her head fell downwards limply. His eyes started tearing up while he dragged her motionless body out from under the desk and onto the open floor. The comms system on the forearm of her suit had been shattered and there were deep dents in her helmet.

“No no no..”

Purple struggled to get off her damaged helmet and when he was finally able to get it off, a gasp came from everyone in the room. Black’s legs gave out from under him and he collapsed against the wall. Dark bruises trailed around Cyan’s neck and were also visibly creeping up from her collarbone. Her head hung flimsily due to her broken neck. Her eyes were still open and her skin was pale and cold. Purple couldn’t even breathe at first. He just put his arms around her and held her close to him while he buried his head into her chest. His body shook violently and he sobbed silently until he finally was able to take in a sharp breath. He had begun to rock back and forth slowly while uncontrollably crying against her suit. Yellow cautiously approached him, tears in her own eyes as well, and sat beside him to rub his back and comfort him as best as she could. She very lightly closed Cyan’s eyes with her other hand and looked up to the rest of the crew. Pink was kneeling next to Black who had pulled his helmet off. Despite having tears running down his cheeks, he looked completely numb - as if his entire world had just fallen apart around him. It might as well have.

“Please come back.. Please come back, Cyan..”

Purple whispered between his sobs. He finally raised his head and pushed her soft blonde hair back before kissing her forehead and laying her down carefully. He wiped his face and then stood up slowly. It was already apparent that he was slipping mentally.

“Which one of you did this?”

He asked with a low, menacing tone. When no one answered, he snapped.

“Who killed her?! Which one of you assholes took her away from me?!”

“Purple--”

Red started off but was immediately slammed against the wall. Purple held him up by the front of his suit roughly and shook the captain so the back of his helmet hit the wall.

“This is your fault! Even if you're not the one that actually killed her, you led to her death by letting that fucking creature come aboard this ship! You put your own stupid mission above the safety of your crew. Both you and Green did.”

He then let go of him and stepped back.

“You are no captain to me. I hope both of you rot in hell for this.”

He said to the two men before storming out. He was so angry at them that he didn’t even stop to blame Black for anything which was definitely saying something. Yellow followed after Purple and ushered Blue to come with her. He was the only other person Purple would tolerate anyways. After those three had left, there was a short silence.

“I’m sorry this happened.”

Red spoke quietly to Black.

His eyes were glazed over but locked on Cyan’s body that laid in the middle of the floor. He didn’t say a word so White did instead.

“Get out.”

She looked up to both Red and Green. They didn’t move so she shoved both of them hard by the chests.

“Get. Out! You’ve done enough damage. Just leave.”

The two men knew she was right so they nodded and walked towards the doorway. Orange sighed, knowing he’d have to go with them to keep up that standard of ‘no groups smaller than three’. Before leaving, he knelt down and put his hand on Black’s shoulder.

“It shouldn’t have been her, I’m so sorry…”

The electrician sniffled and then nodded, still keeping his eyes on her. When it was just him, his brother, and White, he pushed himself off the wall and crawled over to Cyan. He slipped his arms under her and pulled her partially onto his lap. He caressed her cheek lovingly and a few of his teardrops fell on her face. He wiped them off promptly and then touched their foreheads together. A stifled sob was heard from him when he felt how cold her skin was against his. Both Pink and White sat beside him and comforted him silently.

“Angeline.”

He said softly.

“Huh?”

The other two voiced at the same time.

“Her name.”

Black spoke just a bit louder.

“It was Angeline.”

He then lifted his head to look at her again.

“Fitting, isn’t it? Since she really was an absolute angel..”

“I thought… You told Blue and I that she didn’t tell you her name. Black, we aren’t supposed to know anyone’s names.”

“I didn’t want Blue to know.”

He ran his fingers through the hair of the woman he loved.

“She’s gone now. It doesn’t matter anymore.”

His voice quivered and he began to cry again.

“She died all alone.. She must’ve been so scared..”

He rubbed her cheek with his thumb slowly even though his hands were shaking.

“This is all my fault. If I had just kept my temper under control…”

“Don’t you dare think that.”

Pink quickly chimed in.

“Purple started that fight. Cyan literally had to knock him out to get him to stop. This isn’t on you.”

He stayed silent, just looking over her lifeless face. After a moment, Black leaned down and pressed the softest of kisses to Cyan’s lips. Something sweet to send her off into the afterlife with.

“I will  _ always _ love you.”

Black whispered tenderly to her.

After a few minutes, Purple and the two with him walked back into comms. He didn’t say anything about Black holding Cyan or even give him a dirty look. He simply bent down and laid a blanket over the woman.

“We should take her to her room.”

He said quietly. His eyes were puffy and red and no one dared say anything against his idea. 

Black, since he already had his arms around Cyan, carefully lifted her up. He secured his arm under her back and the other under her knees. Even though both men had concussions, they used extreme caution and care while bringing her through the ship and towards the rooms. Purple opened the door and Black laid her down on her bed. Purple then stepped over to her and began to take her off suit so she’d be more comfortable. Black helped him gently work it off of her until she was in only a t-shirt and leggings and lying peacefully on the bed. It was the most civil they had been with each other since all of this happened. White, Pink, Yellow, and Blue all stayed outside the doorway and watched silently while the men took care of the woman they adored. Purple adjusted her blanket over her and then gently squeezed her hand.

“She should still be here. I should’ve never let her out of my sight.”

He mumbled sadly.

Black glanced at him.

“You got knocked unconscious. You couldn’t have kept your eye on her.”

Purple grit his teeth slightly.

“Yeah.. Who did knock me out?”

The other man couldn’t help but laugh quietly.

“She did. Right over the head with your own helmet apparently. At least, that’s what Green had told me when I woke up in medbay.”

“Cyan knocked me out..?”

He paused and then chuckled as well for just a brief moment.

“I never thought she’d have it in her to do something like that.”

Tears fell down his cheeks again and he leaned his head down on her chest.

“Why’d she have to run away though? Why didn’t she just stay with someone?”

The lights then slowly flickered on and off and Pink stepped into the room.

“I know you need to mourn but I wasn’t able to fix everything in electric. You need to try and do whatever you can before something bad happens again...”

He said softly to his brother.

Blue then walked in as well and put his hand on Purple’s shoulder.

“Come on. There’s nothing more either one of you can do for her now and we’re not letting you just sit in here and grieve alone. I’m sorry to say it but we all have to instead focus on trying to find whoever did this.”

Both Purple and Black hesitated but eventually were able to pull themselves away from Cyan and leave her in her room. They wiped their tear-stained cheeks and made their way through the hallways with their fellow crewmates.

“I’ll go handle electrical with Pink and Yellow. You take White and Blue and start arming yourselves.”

After agreeing, each group went their own ways. White stood beside Purple while Blue walked behind them.

“How are you doing..?”

Even though she always sided with Black when it came to Cyan, she couldn’t help but feel horrible for both men. Their bickering fight had ultimately led to her dying alone - though no one would ever tell them that.

“I feel empty.”

He answered.

“Like I don’t have purpose anymore.”

His voice was low and tired and it made White’s heart ache for him. She couldn’t imagine how much he was hurting.

“You do have purpose, Purple.”

She tried to be comforting but she wasn’t the best at it.

“Everyone else on the ship needs you to steer them to safety. Without you, we’d probably fly into a black hole.”

She laughed softly and then looked over her shoulder.

“No offense, Blue.”

“None taken.”

Purple sighed.

“I suppose so. I just.. I don’t know how I’m going to do this without her. She was my best friend.”

He then glanced back too.

“No offense, Blue.”

“Some offense taken.”

Blue said with a light smile.

“But you do have the rest of us here for you.”

“Yeah, except for one of you. Who I’m thinking might be Red.”

He clenched his fists.

“If I find out he was the one who did that to Cyan… I will personally deliver him to the devil.”

“At this point, I think all of us would help you with that.”

White touched his arm and then moved away once they were in weapons. She stopped suddenly and then quickly went towards the weapons cabinet.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck.”

“What’s wrong?”

Blue asked, following behind her.

“The cabinet’s cracked open.”

She then grabbed the door and hurriedly swung it open all the way. Empty. Completely empty. Every single weapon was gone. Not even a singular box of ammo or a pocket knife was leftover.

“Who has the key?”   
Purple questioned slowly, his suspicions growing.

“I do but,”

White looked back to him and then tensed while feeling anger and adrenaline fueling her body.

“Red has a spare.”

“Emergency meeting now.”   
Purple called out over the comms.

Everyone briskly made their way in the cafeteria and the nav and weapons specialist stood in the middle of the room. When Red walked in, both of them charged at him. Once again, Purple had pinned him to the wall and White was helping by shoving Green away.

“I knew it was you, I fucking knew it! You killed her and you tried to kill all of us!”

“Purple, what the hell are you talking about?!”

Green questioned angrily.

“All the weapons are gone and he’s the only other one with a key!”

“Why don’t you suspect White then, huh? Maybe she killed Cyan because she wanted to get Black’s attention!”

“Oh fuck you, Green!”

White then unleashed her frustration into a hard punch straight to his stomach which made him fall over afterwards.

Purple hit Red hard against the wall again.

“No. It’s this asshole. White would never hurt Black like that but you..”

He looked at the man he used to respect.

“You don’t care about us. You probably hated the fact that I was outing you and you wanted to get back at me for it.”

“Cyan did tell me she was getting suspicious of him too...”

Black added on, stepping closer while he began to see the connections White and Purple were making as well.

“We need to just throw him out the airlock. Then we can all rest easy.”

The pilot said darkly.

“It’s not me - fuck! - I swear to god! I made a mistake bringing the specimen on board and not warning you but I’d never try to  _ kill _ any of you!”

“Purple! Put him down!”   
Yellow yelled at him, slipping passed White and tugging on his arm.

“Don’t let your grief make wrongful accusations! Please,”

She shook him slightly.

“Green and I are working on setting up the blood samples and body scans. Lets at least wait and see if those tests yield any kind of results.”

She held his arm and pleaded desperately.

“ _ Please _ .”

After a strong hesitation, Purple finally let Red drop to the ground and stepped away.

“If anyone else dies, it will be  _ your _ fault, Yellow.”

“Don’t talk to her like that!”   
Pink snapped.

“She’s just trying to make sure we don’t throw an innocent person into the airlock.”

“Why does it matter to you? The only person you care about on this ship is your brother. You couldn’t give less fucks about the rest of us.”

“Woah, hey, you have no right to get mad at him.”   
Black said strongly.

“Oh, okay. Well then how about I get mad at the person who actually deserves it?”

He stepped towards the other man and laughed brokenly.

“If you had just agreed with me about Red being the impostor from the start, like you are now, we wouldn’t be suffering! Had you agreed with me, we wouldn’t have started fighting, Cyan wouldn’t have run away, and she’d still be alive!”

“That’s enough!”

Everyone stopped when Orange’s words echoed through the cafeteria. No had ever heard him even raise his voice before.

“We are  _ all _ suffering. We are  _ all _ scared and just want this to end but we are getting nowhere by tearing each other down like this. We need to be logical. Like Yellow said, we need to wait for the tests. We have to continue to stay in groups and keep each other accountable. There’s a right way to do this guys.. We just need to keep level heads.”

There was a brief silence and slowly everyone agreed.

“It’s late. We’re all tired, I know it. So let's just all try to get as much sleep as we can, okay?”

A moment passed before they all realized how exhausted they truly were. Black was the first one to sit down on the ground and then White joined beside him, leaning up against the wall. He pulled off his helmet once again and leaned his head on her shoulder with his eyes closed. He spoke loud enough that everyone could hear him.

“Electric isn’t completely repaired but it’ll be fine until mormon.”

“Mormon?”

White asked with a small laugh.

He looked at her weird, paused, and then rolled his eyes.

“Morning. I meant morning. Shut up, I have a concussion.”

Pink sat down on the other side of White and laid his head on her thigh. The two men quickly fell asleep and once they did, White followed. Purple slept with Blue, Yellow, and Orange nearby while Red and Green were basically exiled off on their own.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> who’s sus now, hm??
> 
> also, not gonna lie, i cried while writing this chapter lmaooo i’m lame


	6. Chapter 6

“You’re lucky Red was still asleep when you snuck off. He probably would’ve got suspicious if he knew you were alone.”

Blue sighed when he walked into communications with Orange.

“You didn’t sleep all night, did you?”

Purple didn’t even turn around to acknowledge them. He just stayed sitting in a chair staring at the blank communications system.

“How could I? I can’t… I can’t wrap my head around the fact that she’s gone.”

He pulled off his helmet and rubbed the back of his head, wincing slightly when he went over a very prominent bump.

“My head already isn’t able to process things fully right now. I keep thinking I’m going to turn a corner and see her there. I walked in here this morning and I swear I saw a download happening on its own and then it felt like a cold burst of air went right through me. The universe is torturing me. Telling me this was my fault.”

“You couldn’t have done anything to help her.”

The third crewmate said carefully.

“You.. You were unconscious. None of this is your fault.”

He then nodded slowly and finally turned around to face the other two men.

“You’re right. It’s not my fault.. It’s  _ Black’s _ fault.”

“For fuck’s sake.”

Blue stepped over and knelt down in front of his friend in the chair, pointing his finger at him.

“This childish feud between you and him  _ has _ to stop. You think Cyan would want you two constantly fighting? She already hated it to begin with. I don’t care what you do but you’re going to find some way to tolerate him until this thing is over. Got it?”

His co-pilot was the only one who could use that strong tone of voice with him and not get socked in the face. Purple looked down shamefully and then sighed.

“...I’ll do it for her.”

“Good.”

Blue stood up straight.

“Come on. You and I are going to stay with Orange while he works on O2.”

After another heavy sigh, Purple allowed himself to leave the room. He and Blue stood near the doorway of the oxygen room while their comrade did what he did best.

“What can I do to help?”

Purple thought at first that the question was directed at Orange but then he was nudged by the taller man.

“Huh? Help? What do you mean?”

“I mean how can I help you cope?”

His eyes immediately teared up again and he was glad he had put his helmet back on so they weren’t seen.

“I.. I don’t know. I just want to find who did this. I want to watch them get launched into the darkness and slowly die.”

He scoffed.

“Though I would much rather have them suffer like Cyan did - no -  _ worse _ than she did. I’d want just fifteen minutes alone with them. I’d make them feel the physical equivalent of my emotional pain.”

Blue didn’t know what to say at first. He had never heard him talk so gruesomely before. Sure, last night was bad when he was talking about airlocking Red but this was much worse despite how vague it was.

“I hope we figure out who it is soon then. For the sake of your closure, not so you can torture them…”

“Hey, could one of you clean out that O2 filter there? It’s messing up the system’s calculations.”

Orange asked while he was still tapping away at his tablet and checking the O2 panel.

The co-pilot ushered Purple to go do it. Anything to take his mind off of Cyan. They both walked towards it and Purple handed Blue the filter covering after he removed it. A few leaves from the planet must’ve snuck in and were blocking the filter. He simply swept them into the small trash opening nearby and then put the filter covering back on.

“Did that help?”

Orange didn’t answer right away. He pushed a few buttons on the panel and then nodded.

“Yup! Thanks.”

He pulled out a pad of paper and scribbled down some numbers.

“I’ve made a lot of changes to the system. I’ll no longer be the only one able to turn the oxygen on. I’ll still be the only one able to turn it  _ off _ but now all of you can turn it back on if it gets sabotaged again.”

He then stuck the piece of paper with the code on it next to the panel.

“I need to put this in admin too.”

The other two followed him while he walked out of O2.

“Mind if we go through storage? I need to refuel the engines after this so I might as well grab the gas tanks on our way.”

Blue said, glancing at his communicator screen to see the fuel levels.

“Yeah, no problem.”

Orange then turned the other way and began walking down the hallway passed navigation.

_ “Mot--r--fuc--er!” _

The three men glanced at each other when the staticky words came through their communicators.

_ “What’s going on?” _

White quickly asked.

_ “I’m not totally sure..?” _

Red answered, sounding completely lost.

_ “Just sit down. Yes, stay there.” _

Yellow breathed in deeply and there was already a worried tone to her voice.

_ “It’s okay. Well… Kind of. Green got a really bad shock when we tried running a body scan on him. It was probably just a malfunction from the system. We haven’t perfected the coding yet, I guess..” _

A few faint, pained moans were heard from Green over the woman’s comms.

_ “He’ll be alright. Sorry for the scare everyone.” _

After reassurance from her, everyone continued on with their tasks. Pink was doing his best to fix a panel near the doorway in electrical and Black was attempting to get some files downloaded to his tablet. White did a quick run through of the weapons system from her communicator. Everything seemed to be in order. She’d have to go up there and clear the path of a few stray asteroids eventually but it could wait for now.

“Hey.”

Her voice made Black jolt out of his intense focus.

“Sorry. Uh, are you okay?”

She then scoffed at herself and leaned up against the wall while standing next to him.

“Of course you’re not okay. I should ask instead; How are you holding up?”

“I’m.. I’m doing fine. This download is being a pain in the ass but--”

“No.”

White said, crossing her arms over her chest.

“You know what I’m actually asking about.”

Black sighed and tucked his tablet into one of the bigger pockets on the side of his leg. He leaned against the wall as well and looked down.

“Not.. Not so good.”

His voice was a bit unsteady while he tried to stay strong. Didn’t work that great though.

“That’s what I thought.”

She lightly touched his shoulder and pushed off the wall. She opened up her arms slightly and stood there awkwardly for a second.

“Would a hug hel--”

She was basically slammed into by the taller man and almost fell over. His body shook while he gripped her tightly and she hugged him back to console him as best as she could. She wasn’t great at sympathizing with others but she still hated seeing her best friend hurt this badly. The hug lasted much longer than normal hugs did but it didn’t feel uncomfortable at all. When Black did finally let go of her, he took in a deep breath and nodded slightly.

“Thank you.”

He then grabbed his tablet back out of his pocket and went back to attempting the download.

Pink suddenly skidded around the corner and ran up to his brother.

“I think I fucked something up.”

The older sighed heavily and went over to the panel he had been working on.

“How… How were you able to do this..?”

He stared in awe at that fact that Pink somehow mismatched all the wires and now they were buzzing loudly. His brother just shrugged his shoulders upwards and Black shook his head.

“Good god.”

He carefully reached his hands in and pulled apart the wires. He then set the correct ones next to each other and gestured for White to come over.

“Tell me which one goes to which.”

He pulled his tablet out again and began to tap on it a bit.

“Uh.. These two go together, then these, those two, and that one and that one.”

She said, confused as to why he was asking her to do that.

“Perfect.”

Black set a roll of electrical tape in her hand and began to walk away.

“Fix them for me. Pink, come on, I’ll give you a different task. Maybe show you how to work some of this stuff without screwing it up.”

White laughed softly and then made quick work of the task she had been given. When she went back over to the brothers, Pink was writing notes on everything Black was saying. Probably a good idea. A couple times while they were working the electricity seemed to surge and then blow out for a couple seconds.

“Why the hell is it doing that..?”

Black huffed. He then paused.

“Are you guys still trying to make the scanner work?”

_ “Yeah but it seems to short out every time.” _

Green answered.

“Have you given any thought as to why that may be happening?”

He asked in a snarky tone.

There was a brief silence before Green spoke again.

_ “Because we don’t have the coding right…?” _

Black laughed irritably and shook his head.

“Because the generators can’t keep up that kind of power! Stop fucking testing the scans and work on something else. Fucking hell.”

He snipped and then turned off his mic. He thudded his head against the wall in front of him and breathed in deeply to try and control his fluctuating mood.

“Try it again.”

He instructed Pink. The younger male pushed a couple buttons and after a moment, the rest of the electrical panels lit up.

“Finally.”

Black sighed in relief and used his suit’s communicator to turn off the backup generators. Him and Pink went to each panel and were able to fix them decently quick. The electrician took off his helmet and obvious tension released from his body. Turning on his mic, he spoke once again.

“Electrical is fully up and running now. It shouldn’t have any issues anymore and if it does, we’ll  _ all _ be notified. If the lights go out, open the large panel at the front of the room when you first walk in and flip the switches until they’re all lit up. That should fix it. Everyone got that?”

A couple ‘Yes’s came from the others.

_ “Thank you, Black” _

Yellow said softly.

_ “Green and I are working now on the blood samples setup. We won’t try the scanner for a bit so we won’t mess up anything in electrical right after you’ve finished fixing it all.” _

“That’s a good idea. Try it later tonight though. The regular power should be able to withstand the scanner turning on. Hopefully.”

The man turned to the other two with him.

“How are your guys’ stations holding up?”

“We should probably check the reactor… I haven’t even gone in there since the night O2 was sabotaged. I’ve just been keeping an eye on it from my communicator.”

Pink rubbed the back of his neck knowing that it wasn’t such a great thing that he had left the reactor on its own for so long.

“Plus I need to look over the shields too since we’ve messed around with the electricity so much.”

Black nodded and looked to White.

“Yours?”

She shrugged.

“The weapons system is fine for now. There’s some things I have to do with it later but it can wait. It’s definitely not as important as the reactor.”

Compared the amount of time it took to repair everything in electrical, checking on both the reactor and the weapons system went by in the blink of an eye. White was even able to clear the asteroids she saw earlier. Just as they finished, Red called them all into the cafeteria. When they gathered, he looked to Black.

“I think we all need to get some food in our bellies.”

The man nodded and nudged White.

“Wanna help?”

She laughed and immediately shook her head.

“Oh god, no, that’s a horrible idea. I’m a curse to kitchens. I’ve literally burned water.”

Black stepped back and nodded.

“Okay, yeah, you’re definitely not coming with me.”

“I… I can help.”

Even with their helmets still on, it was obvious that all eyes were wide.

“What? Cyan taught me some stuff.”

Purple said with his arms crossed over his chest.

“Uh,”

The other man stuttered at first.

“okay..? Sure. I guess you could come help.”

“What the hell is going on?”

White mumbled under her breath. Everyone else was thinking the same thing while the two walked into the kitchen.

“I’m going to go with them to make sure they don’t try to stab each other or something…”

Pink said, quickly going after them.

“Huh. I didn’t think he’d actually listen to me.”

Blue’s eyebrows were raised in surprise after he removed his helmet.

“You convinced him to be civil with Black?”

“I guess so.”

“How? Wait, shouldn’t that have been my job? I am supposed to be the psychiatrist of this crew..”

Yellow huffed quietly.

The co-pilot just shrugged.

“I don’t know. Maybe it’s because he wanted to listen to his friend?”

With the help of Purple, they all were able to get a decent meal in them and settled down afterwards. Tensions seemed to be lessened as they casually talked amongst themselves. Black and Purple shared stories of Cyan and they were actually seen laughing with each other, surprisingly. Eventually everyone began to get ready to sleep and stayed in the same groups they did last night. Not everyone was able to stay asleep throughout the night though.

“Ouch! Dammit..”

Orange winced quietly and shook his hand off from the small shock he received. He sighed and adjusted a few controls on his tablet before sticking his hand back into the O2 panel.

“Come on.. Just a few more adjustments and then my brain will let me go back to sleep.”

He mumbled to himself.

“How do you turn off the oxygen?”

He jumped back, startled as he thought he had snuck away from the cafeteria unheard.

“God you scared me.”

He chuckled softly.

“I, uh, can’t tell you that. I’m not saying I don’t trust you but—“

“Tell me.”

Orange’s stomach dropped when he heard the click of a gun’s hammer cocking back. He froze in place and couldn’t even take a full breath in.

“Please tell me it’s not actually you. Tell me this is just some sort of mental break.”

The gun’s silencer pressed up against his helmet and he let go of his tablet.

“You’re going to kill me whether I tell you or not, huh?”

He then slowly began to reach for his communicator, hoping the other wouldn’t notice.

“I won’t—“

Orange then let out a sharp, distressed gasp when he was grabbed. His communicator shattered and he felt his wrist break like a twig.

“I’m not giving you - Ah - the codes.. I won’t betray my friends.”

“Either they slowly suffocate in their sleep, painlessly, or I have to find a different, probably torturous, way to kill them. Do you really want to be the reason they suffer?”

He hesitated and tears streamed down his cheeks. He couldn’t tell if it was from the fact his wrist was broken, that he was going to die, or that his friends were going to die too.

“On my tablet.”

He sniffled and slid it over with his foot.

“The codes are already on there.”

Orange squeezed his eyes shut tightly.

“Please don’t do this. I won’t say anything.”

“I know you won’t.”

A quiet sigh was heard before the trigger was pulled.

“Why couldn’t you have just stayed asleep?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> skip?? idk who to vote guys :/


	7. Chapter 7

“I think that was the first good sleep I’ve had since this started.”

Black said after yawning once he woke up.

“Probably because you finally finished fixing electrical.”

White said, rubbing her eyes and twisting to crack her back. 

“Well aren’t you just so lucky..”

Yellow laughed softly even though she looked quite tired. She did her best to smooth out her bedhead and then stood up slowly.

“I don’t know about all of you, but I could go for a cup of coffee right about now.”

Blue mumbled while he was laying on the ground with his arm covering his eyes.

“Please tell me we still have some left.”

“I’ll have to check. Maybe. I don’t know.”

The electrician blinked his eyes open wide to wake up more.

“Um..”

Yellow glanced around frantically.

“Where.. Where’s Green and Orange?”

Red immediately shot up.

“What?”

“They’re both gone.”

Purple said, already beginning to pull on his helmet.

“Didn’t you close the cafeteria doors last night?”

The captain asked Black.

“I.. I can’t do that anymore. The system is too fragile right now for me to keep doors closed overnight.”

He answered back worriedly.

“Okay, okay.”

Red thought for a brief moment.

“Yellow, Pink, Black, and I will check medbay. Purple, White, Blue.. You guys check O2. If we can’t find either of them in those places, we’ll do a full search of the ship.”

Everyone agreed and hurried off. They put their helmets on while walking and not a word was said. The anticipation was enough to give each of them a heart attack. When the pilots and the weapons specialist turned the corner to go into O2, they each were halted by the sight. White gasped and gripped Blue’s arm tightly. He could feel her body already beginning to tremble so he used his other arm to wrap around her shoulders and pull her close. Purple shook his head as he slowly walked in and knelt beside Orange who was laying on the floor, his head in a pool of his own blood.

“We found Orange. He’s…”

He took in a sharp breath.

“He’s dead.”

There was silence over the communicators for a bit. White’s ears perked up when she heard an echo of something down the hallway. She moved away from Blue.

“White?”

While she began to walk out of O2, the captain responded.

_ “Green is nowhere to be found.” _

Purple stood up and punched the wall.

“That asshole!”

He turned when Blue grabbed his arm. They quickly tried to catch up with the woman who was silently stepping towards navigation. She slowly peeked her head in and then suddenly jumped back.

“You—!”

Green gasped when he got startled by her voice. He then looked to Purple and Blue who also saw him.

“No— This isn’t what it looks like!”

“Then tell us what it’s supposed to look like, Green! Because to me it looks like you’re trying to open a vent!”

White yelled while she was pushed back behind the two men by Blue.

“We just found Green trying to get into a vent.”

He said over the comms quickly.

“No! It was already open! I was trying to see if anything was in there! I swear!”

The scientist pleaded desperately, ripping off his helmet and standing up with a smile that he was using to try and convince them.

“Guys, I’m your friend. Please believe me. I’m not the impostor.”

He stepped towards them and the other three immediately moved back.

“It’s quite a coincidence then, isn’t it?”

Purple asked.

“Coincidence?”

Green looked lost.

“What are you talking about?”

“He’s talking about the fact that you're messing with a vent right after we found Orange’s dead fucking body in the next room over!”

Blue really had to hold her back this time. He knew for a fact that White would try to fight him herself and he wasn’t going to risk her getting hurt.

His expression dropped.

“Orange..? Orange is dead?”

He shook his head.

“No… I woke up and saw him gone early this morning. I went looking for him because I thought he was the impostor. That’s why I was near this vent! I thought maybe he slipped in here!”

“Save it.”

Black said strongly as he came around the corner and joined next to Purple and Blue.

“We should’ve guessed it earlier. I have a feeling the body scanner didn’t ‘malfunction’. I think it did its job. We just didn’t know it was telling us that you were the impostor when it sent that electrical shock through your body.”

“No, please, guys..”

Green laughed worriedly.

“It was just a malfunction. It could’ve happened to anyone!”

There was a brief silence and then Red stepped forward.

“Grab him.”

The scientist's face quickly went from a look of betrayal to a look of rage. He lunged at the captain. The other three men nearby caught him before he could even touch him though. Pink then quickly joined in restraining him.

“This is your fault, Red!”

He screamed, flailing against their hold while he was dragged out of nav.

“You did this! You did this!”

It didn’t take long for them to get him into the airlock. They threw him in and then stepped back fast before the door closed.

“I can’t believe it..”

Yellow mumbled softly.

They all jumped slightly when Green slammed up against the small window on one of the doors. He looked manic.

“Go ahead, throw me out!”

He then glared at Red.

“Better watch your back, ‘Captain’! Karma’s a’comin’ for ya! They’ll turn against you too! You’ll see!”

Red didn’t hesitate to yank the lever down. It wasn’t the sweet, soft death Yellow had described to convince them to use the airlock. No. Green didn’t have his helmet on. Once the airlock doors opened, his eyes shot wide open and his body jolted hard when all the oxygen was sucked from his lungs. It looked… painful. Quick, but painful. His skin already had hints of blue to it as he floated away from the ship. The doors closed when he floated far enough away and that was the end of it. Everyone stood there in silence for a little while. They couldn’t tell if they should be happy or sad. Maybe both.

“It’s over…”

Blue said quietly.

“It’s really over.”

He couldn’t help but let out a brief, relieved laugh and Yellow lightly touched his arm. He hugged her tightly. She had comforted him when he had his breakdown in nav the first night. He didn’t want to die on this ship. Now he wouldn’t.

Purple stepped up to Red privately while White, Pink, and Black joined in with Blue and Yellow to create a happy group hug.

“Captain?”

Red raised his eyebrows upon being called that again.

“I should apologize. For all the accusations I made against you. I really am sorry.”

He put his hand on the pilot’s shoulder and shook his head.

“Don’t be. It’s been stressful for all of us. You didn’t throw me out the airlock and honestly,”

He laughed with a shrug.

“that’s what I was worried about. You all would’ve been left alone with the real impostor had you done that… I would’ve just floated away into the nothingness knowing that I wouldn’t be able to protect my crew. Now,”

He brought Purple in for a strong hug.

“we’re all safe.”

The two basically hit each other’s back before breaking apart their ‘manly’ hug. The rest of the crew had taken off their helmets and relieved smiles returned to their faces for the first time in almost three days.

Yellow then sighed softly, taking a step back with a bittersweet expression.

“We.. We need to get Orange.”

They all then showed the same expression and nodded. Picking up their helmets, they walked back to O2. Red slowly flipped him from his side onto his back and the doctor bit her lip roughly for a moment. The front of his helmet had been shattered by the bullet and you could clearly see the hole in his head. Red and Blue carefully lifted him up and they carried him to medbay. Laying him down on a bed, Yellow brought some towels over to him. The two men helped get his helmet and suit off to leave him in just his underclothes. They had to keep the helmet tipped a certain way to prevent the excess blood from spilling out. After dumping it, they rested it on top of his also partially bloodied suit. The doctor used the towels to clean the blood from his face and hair; though it had already stained some of his light brunette locks. Once again, she had to close the eyes of one of her crewmates. It stung in her heart to do so. After Orange had been taken care of, they moved him from medbay to his room - just as they had done with Cyan. 

The remaining seven allowed themselves to finally relax in the cafeteria. The mood was light and they indulged in not having to wear their full suits anymore. Sweatpants had come back into fashion on The Skeld.

“I feel like I can finally breathe!”

White cheered while leaning her head back. She then shook her head, letting her jet black hair fall down to her shoulders.

“You know what I could use right about now?  _ A shower _ .”

She hummed happily at the thought.

“Oh god, me too.”

Red agreed.

“Woah, woah! You go last.”

Blue said, pointing his finger to the captain.

“Huh? Why?!”

“You use up all the hot water!”

Multiple crewmates shouted out at the same time with a laugh.

Black then stood up and began stepping backwards towards the kitchen.

“How does some brunch sound, guys?”

He asked while facing them. After getting some lively nods, he turned and disappeared to get food going.

“I’m going to help him.”

Purple said.

“I’ve got some reconciliation to catch up on.”

They watched while he walked away and Red and Yellow began to talk. Pink found his way to butt in on the conversation every now and then, of course.

“Hey.”

White looked to Blue who had been sitting beside her.

“How are you doing?”

“Hm? I’m doing fine. Why?”

He shrugged.

“You seemed pretty shook up when we found Orange. I just wanted to make sure you were alright.”

White looked down and tilted her head to the side. 

“Yeah… I just.. It’s all been so rough.”

She sighed.

“I decided to join NASA after my first tour in the marines because it was  _ people _ that worried me. I could handle any environmental situation the marines and even NASA threw at me. But when it came to trusting people? I sucked at it. I didn’t trust a single person in my squadron and it scared me. I expected the same to happen here. I was just going to make myself useful on the planet and then be done. I wasn’t going to befriend anyone.”

She laughed softly and rubbed the back of her neck before raising her eyes to him.

“But then I met this group. I actually grew to trust people… Black and Pink, they’re my best friends now. I’d die for them. I’d die for anyone here.”

She breathed in deeply and tried to not think about it too much.

“But then I lost all that trust again when the impostor surfaced. I was terrified.”

Her voice lowered and she trailed off for a moment. Suddenly, she snapped back and smiled at him.

“I’m fine now though. We’re safe. The people I love are safe and I can be vulnerable again, I guess.”

“Wow…”

The man blinked a few times to process all she said.

“You.. are a huge softie!”

He teased quietly.

White punched his shoulder.

“Shut it! I’ll still kick your ass.”

She shook her head and then rested it on her hand.

“You seemed to hold it together pretty well through all this.”

Blue scoffed.

“Are you kidding me? I had a breakdown the first night when Purple and I were checking to see if nav had been sabotaged. Though, I guess it did help when I had to take care of Purple’s temper after Cyan died… It kept me distracted from my own fears for a bit.”

“She didn’t deserve that.”

She whispered softly.

“Black will never get over her.”

She looked towards the kitchen.

“Remember how he told us he asked for her name? And he said she didn’t tell him?”

Blue answered with a nod and a hum.

“Apparently she did. I know that’s not actually saying ‘I love you’ but I’m pretty sure that’s what she meant by telling him.”

He frowned.

“I can’t believe Green had it in him to kill such a sweetheart. Well, I guess it wasn’t fully him but still..”

White nodded and then paused before speaking again.

“You know, there’s something that’s been bothering me about him.”

“What?”

“If he was the impostor, why did he try out the body scanner if he knew it’d out him? Red was with them. He could’ve made him get scanned instead. And, at the end there, he seemed so intent on demonizing Red…”

She huffed.

“Whatever. It doesn’t matter. We caught him red handed and that’s that.”

Nothing more was said about it because Black and Purple brought out sandwiches right as she finished her sentence.

“Guys,”

Red breathed in deeply, sitting up straight after he had finished eating.

“I just want to say that I’m sorry. The losses that we’ve experienced are undoubtedly my fault. I should’ve never kept the specimen a secret from you all. I don’t deserve forgiveness, I deserve to be out there with Green as well but I am eternally grateful to still be your captain.”

He seemed to genuinely be getting choked up but he pulled it back together quickly.

“NASA used you.”

Pink began.

“Cyan and Orange’s deaths are on them. Not you, Captain. You were manipulated into believing that this was going to be ‘an incredible discovery’ and probably that you’d be doing some sort of service for bringing that thing in to be studied. In the end we’re all human. Well, except for Green.”

He chuckled briefly.

“But my point is that we make mistakes. Especially when we’re misled to believe we’re doing what’s right.”

His words really sank in with all of them. Red smiled slightly.

“Thank you.. Thank you, Pink. I appreciate that.”

A moment passed and Purple broke the short silence.

“I’m going to go see if I can get us to the docking station sooner. Redirect our flight path or something. Blue?”

He looked to his co-pilot who then nodded and stood up. He lightly squeezed White’s shoulder before leaving her side.

“I’ll tag along, if that’s alright by you. I’d like to see what you come up with.”

Red followed after them, no resistance from either men. Trust was starting to come back for all of them.

As the two men left, Yellow got up as well and began to walk out of the cafeteria.

“Where are you going?”

Pink called out softly.

“Oh.”

She rubbed her arm and sighed.

“I’m going to keep working on the blood test system.”

The three left in the room looked at each other and then back to her.

“Why? We don’t need it anymore.”

Black mentioned.

The woman sighed and glanced up at the ceiling.

“I just…”

She shook her head and tried to laugh off her concern.

“Something about this doesn’t feel right. I would like to still get blood samples and body scans. Just to be  _ really _ sure.”

“I actually think that’s a good idea”

White said with a shrug.

“Couldn’t hurt, right?”

Yellow nodded and then turned to leave once again. She paused in the doorway and asked another question while staring at the floor.

“Did anyone check to see if Green had a gun on him?”

“We.. We didn’t..”

Black answered slowly.

“Maybe you guys should check his room. And his stuff. See if it’s there. Or maybe go open up that vent in nav if you can and see if he stashed the weapons in there.”

She began to leave finally.

“Just to be sure..”

She mumbled.

Yellow had made the three friends feel uneasy. A shadow of doubt had been casted and they weren’t going to let it loom over them much longer. If it hadn’t actually been Green… Then the impostor was still on board with them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> were your suspicions correct?


	8. Chapter 8

They tried to not walk through the hallways like they were worried but, oh boy, they were worried.

“I mean, you guys caught Green tampering with the vent, right? He  _ had _ to have been the impostor then.”

Pink tried to reassure himself though it didn’t seem to help much. It didn’t help any of them.

“I mean, yeah? Blue and Purple saw it too. He was opening up that vent… He couldn’t have done it alone, he’s not strong enough on his own to move that thing.”

White said.

The three of them had made their way to their ex-crewmate’s room and began rummaging through it for any sign of a weapon. After every inch of the room had been turned over and searched, they breathed in deeply and hands were shaking now.

“N-Nav vent..”

She quickly stood up and led the way to navigation. On the way, they grabbed special hooks used to help them open vents. Neither Pink, Black, or even White were able to explain to the other men in navigation what they were doing. Their voices were frozen. Even with Red helping them, they still struggled to get the vent open at first. White dipped her head down into the vent and clicked on the flashlight Black handed her. She looked up and down the vent and then sat back up.   
“Nothing’s there.”

She whispered defeatedly.

“That doesn’t make any sense though!”

Black looked desperate.

“Why would Green be over here then if not to stash the gun he used to kill Orange? This vent would be of no use to him to escape. It only leads to weapons which would’ve made it more obvious that he killed Orange if he was in there.”

“Guys, what’s going on?”

Purple finally asked.

White dropped her head in her hands while she stayed sitting on the floor and hot tears began to pool between her fingers. Blue quickly went to her side and put his arm around her while Black did his best to answer the question.

“Yellow.. She pointed out something that’s somewhat concerning.”

He ran his fingers through his hair, stressed as hell.

“We never checked to see if Green had a gun on him. We just went through his room and there’s no trace of a singular weapon in there.”

“So he had it on him when we threw him out then.”   
Red said as if it was obvious.

“White caught him before he could fully open the vent. Maybe he was planning on stashing it there but she walked in and saw him.”

He sighed.

“Everything from that point on happened so fast. I bet he had it in his pocket and none of us even realized it.”

Pink rubbed his face.

“Yellow is still working on the blood samples and body scans. She wants everyone to have one just in ca--”

He paused and thought about his words.

“Just to  _ reassure _ us that Green was the impostor.”

The captain shook his head and huffed.

“Fine. But Green  _ was _ the impostor. So try to not let Yellow’s, probably grief induced, doubt burrow too deep into your minds, okay? We just started to get back to normal. Let’s not fall back to the chaos we’ve had the past two days, please.”

He then looked to the nav system.

“We’re planning on getting to the docking station the day after tomorrow. Early, probably.”

Blue slowly ran his hand down the back of White’s head.

“Captain? I..”

He hesitated but was motivated to speak up when he heard a soft sniffle from the woman he was holding.

“I think we should wait on recalculating the flight path again. Let’s allow Yellow to run her tests and get the results back  _ before _ we arrive at the station.”

“You want to stay out here longer?”

Red asked to clarify. The co-pilot nodded.

“I-- Alright, I guess.”

He chuckled, unamused, and shrugged his shoulders up.

“Why are you so resistant?”

Black looked at him suspiciously.

“What’s your rush?”

“I just want to get home!”

He snapped. The man quickly tried to pull himself back together.

“I’ve lost three people. All of your lives were at risk and the weight was nearly unbearable for me. We got rid of the man responsible and now, all of a sudden, we’re falling apart again because of one small doubt? I want you all safe, which we  _ are _ . We start the blame game again and someone who’s innocent might get thrown into that airlock.”

His crew stared at him for a moment. Purple rubbed his temples.

“He’s right. We can’t point fingers again. But,”

He glanced to the man sitting slightly behind him.

“I have to agree with Blue’s idea. I’m not necessarily thrilled about staying out here another three days but, I think it’s what we should do. If we were wrong.. We risk Cyan and Orange’s fate for the entire station.”

Though their captain was against it, the rest of them reluctantly came to a decision to listen to Blue. They left nav and rejoined with Yellow in medbay. She had put her full suit back on and her helmet was sitting on a table nearby her.

“Just a precaution..”

She said softly after catching sight of her crewmates.

“That’s smart.”

Black nodded.

“The rest of us should get ours on too. And, uh, lets reinstate the standard of no groups of two or less, yeah?”

They all agreed and White just slumped down on one of the beds, staring off blankly.

“You guys go get dressed.”

Blue whispered to the other.

“I’ll stay with her.”

The brothers hesitantly left their friend but they knew they’d be back soon. Red went with them and Purple pointed towards Yellow.

“I’m going to see if I can help out.”

Blue nodded and waited until Purple had joined Yellow to approach White.

“It’s happening all over again.”

She mumbled.

“Am I in hell?”

She asked, looking up at the man who was now standing next to her.

“I don’t know.”

He answered honestly before sitting down.

“But if you are, then I guess I am too.”

White smiled sadly.

“Oh, now I  _ definitely _ know I’m in hell.”

He laughed and lightly elbowed her.

“Rude.”

She breathed in deeply and tucked her hair behind her ear.

“It’s nice having you take care of me.”

She mentioned gently.

“Oh?”

White then quickly sat up straight and awkwardly giggled.

“I mean.. Because you can distract yourself from your own worries, ya know? Like, uh, like you had been doing with Purple. But he seems pretty stable now so you don’t have to help him and if I wasn’t a mess then you’d have no one to care for and you’d just be getting more and more distressed and--”

“You’re funny.”

He cut her off in the middle of her fast spoken ramble.

“Huh?”

Blue smiled.

“I’ve never seen you get flustered before. It’s cu-- interesting.”

“I’m not-- Flustered?”

White crossed her arms over her chest with a huff.

“No. I’m a tough marine woman. I don’t get flustered.”

“Sure you don’t.”

He then sighed.

“I wanted to get closer to you while we were training, you know? At NASA.”

She blinked and relaxed her arms a bit.

“And I’m not saying I’m mad at them because of it, I’m glad they’re your friends, but Black and Pink stole away all your time.”

He rubbed the back of his neck.

“Plus I had kinda thought you didn’t like me.”

“What? Why?”

She asked defensively.

Blue raised his eyebrow at her.

“Do you really not remember?”

All she had to do was show that brief look of confusion and he got her answer.

“It’s okay, it feels like such a long time ago anyways. You backhanded me.”

“I--!”

White covered her face.

“Why? Why would I do that?”

“I was watching you go through a simulation of being on the planet. You were maneuvering the rover incorrectly so I pointed it out to you. Next thing I knew, I had been backhanded and you stormed away. Black told me later that you were having a bad day or something.”

She groaned and flopped back onto the bed.

“I am  _ so _ sorry. Black was probably right. My temper is so touchy when I’m in a bad mood.”

Blue shrugged.

“It’s fine. I’m just bummed it took a literal life and death situation for us to hang out. If you consider this a ‘hang out’.”

The weapons specialist propped herself up on her elbows and sighed.

“Yeah. But hey, we still have a long flight home. Plenty of time for us to hang out properly. Maybe you could show me how to fly the ship?”

“Seeing how you directed the rover, I don’t think you should ever get behind the wheel but..”

He hummed.

“if I’m with you it shouldn’t be too dangerous.”

White laughed.

“Fair enough. I did fail my driver’s test three times before passing and everyone in my squadron would leave nail imprints on the chairs whenever I drove.”

Blue’s eyes widened and he blinked a few times.

“Maybe I’ll start you off with refueling the engines.”

“Hey!”

“Your guys’ turn.”

They turned around to see Red, Black, and Pink return fully suited up. Blue and White stood up and walked out once Purple was with them as well. White’s room was closest so she was the first to get dressed. After she had closed the door, Blue felt himself being stared at. He looked to his left and saw his friend smirking at him.

“What are you all smug about?”

“You like her, don’t you?”

“What? White?”

He turned his head downwards.

“Why are you even asking?”

“Dude!”

Purple whispered excitedly, punching Blue’s arm lightly.

“I remember you telling me you had a thing for her like the second week of training. But you backed off because you assumed she hated you. Now you know she never did!”

He then poked at the front of his chest.

“Don’t think I didn’t hear you guys talking.”

“You were eavesdropping that whole time?”

Blue quietly yelled at him.

“A majority of it.”

He laughed along with a shrug. He then grabbed his co-pilot by the shoulders and looked him intensely in the eyes.

“You better make your move before we get to the docking station.”

“I can’t. I don’t deserve her”

He heard the door opening up and spoke quickly.

“You’ll regret it if you don’t. Trust me.”

“Alrigh--”

White paused when she saw the two men.

“Did I interrupt something here?”

She asked with a laugh.

Blue rolled his eyes and pushed his friend’s hands off his shoulders.

“Not at all.”

Purple grinned and then continued off to his room. Once the three of them had their suits on and good to go, they returned to medbay. Pink was helping Yellow and she seemed to be happier - less stressed.

“She said she can start the blood tests tomorrow morning.”

Black said.

“That’s good.”

Purple nodded and glanced around.

“So what’s the plan now?”

“Just, stick together? There’s really nothing for us to do right now.”

The electrician tapped away at his communicator.

“I can’t wait to get to the docking station. There are so many things that need to be replaced in electrical.”

“I’d really love to get my guns back.”

White grumbled in an irritated tone.

A couple hours trudged on with nothing eventful to be reported. Pink did his best to help Yellow perfect the blood sampling system. His best apparently was above and beyond. He had some sort of unnoticed knack for programming this kind of thing. All that was left was to wait for the system to process and come online.

“Hey!”

Everyone jolted and snapped back to look at White who’s eyes had gone wide from the sudden stares.

“Oh, sorry. Heh..”

She was sitting on the floor with Black playing finger football. She reached over and punched the front of his shoulder. Hard.

“Don’t move your fingers again, cheater!”

She whispered angrily. Black just laughed.

“He’s literally  _ always  _ cheated at that game. Even when I was a little kid.”

Pink rolled his eyes with a smile.

“Did it not make you better at the game though?”

The elder brother asked before flicking the paper football directly through White’s fingers. She groaned and made a tally mark on the piece of paper beside her. He was kicking her ass pretty bad.

“No! It just made me never trust you in games!”

Pink huffed and then gazed to the rest of the crew that was sitting around.

“Yellow and I are done programming everything. We’re going to take small vials of your blood right now and then the results should be done tomorrow afternoonish.”

After everyone had given their samples, they congregated in the cafeteria for an early dinner. They tried their best to not act distant with each other since there were suspicions again. Blue and Purple had a difficult time with Red sitting at the table with them but they sucked it up anyways. After they had eaten and passed a bit of time talking about what they missed from Earth, they decided to try and get some sleep. Because they were waiting for the test results, they continued to sleep another night in the cafeteria to be extra safe. It took awhile for everyone to settle down since they were a bit on edge but eventually each one of them drifted off. At least, for a short amount of time. Purple literally walked on his tippy-toes to get out of the cafeteria unheard. He quietly stepped down the hallway until he was in Cyan’s room.

“We believe Green was the impostor.”

He whispered softly.

“I hope we were right. We’re a bit unsure now but, for your sake, I hope we were right.”

He sat on the ground beside her bed and had his head leaning against the bed frame.

“I miss you so much. It feels.. so weird without having you around.”

The man paused and took in a deep, unsteady breath.

“I’m so sorry this happened… It should’ve never happened. You shouldn’t have been alone. I hope it didn’t hurt too much though.”

At this exact moment, another restless soul was stopped after hearing Purple’s voice. Black stood outside the door; against the wall so he wasn’t seen by the other. He listened closely.

“I’m sorry. I wish.. I wish you would’ve just stayed with the others, where you were safe. Then this wouldn’t have had to happen.”

The electrician’s eyebrows pinched together. Why did it sound like he was apologizing to Cyan for hurting her?  _ Did _ he hurt her? Purple reached up and lightly touched her hair.

“At least you didn’t have to suffer like the rest of the crew has been. All the stress.. The loss..”

He sighed.

“I’m glad you died before the rest of them.”

That was it. Black’s breaking point. He stepped into the room and pressed his gun up to the back of Purple’s head.

“I fucking knew it was you.”

The pilot put his hands up.

“What? You-you’re the one with a gun!”

He scoffed.

“You just incriminated yourself.”

“And the things I heard you say right now doesn’t incriminate  _ you _ ?”

Black’s voice cracked slightly and he pushed the gun up against his head harder.

“You took away the woman I loved.”

He shook his head.

“You really must be an alien to have killed her. The real Purple wasn’t even capable of raising his voice at her.”

“Are you forgetting the fact that I was  _ unconscious _ when she died?”

He snapped.

He laughed darkly.

“Yeah. That was your cover. The lights went out for a while. Would’ve been enough time for you to sneak around and kill her. You knew exactly where she’d be too.”

He clicked back the hammer.

“I’m going to make sure you die like Green did. No helmet on. You’re not going to float away peacefully. I want to watch while the oxygen is ripped from your lungs. Now get up. I’m taking you back to the others.”

“And how will you convince them?”

“They’ll believe anything right now. You know how on edge they are. A barely solid suspicion will be good enough. It’s over. I win.”

“Put the gun down, Black.”

The electrician snapped around at the sound of Red’s voice.

“Captain, no, you don’t understand--”

“I’m pretty sure I understand crystal clear.”

He shook his head after hearing the last bit of what Black had been saying.

“You have a gun. The only known gun on board.”

“If you’d just let me explain--”

He was cut off this time by a loud gasp. Glancing out the doorway he saw his best friend standing there with her hand over her mouth.

“White! White, you-you can straighten all this out.”

Black smiled brokenly.

“The first night, right after the O2 sabotage, we were loading all the guns up with ammo, remember? I took this pistol just to be safe. I.. I was going to throw it out the garbage while all of you were asleep because this is exactly what I didn’t want to happen. But then,”

He shoved the gun against Purple’s head again.

“I heard him telling Cyan he was ‘glad she died before the rest’.”

“That’s not what I meant!”

“Shut up! You stole her from me forever!”

He then looked to Red, tears in his eyes but that unsettling smile still on his face.

“Captain,  _ he’s _ the impostor. White, you believe me, right? You saw me take this gun at the very beginning. Why would I’ve used it on Orange if I knew you saw me take it?”

White’s chin quivered while she spoke.

“I.. I never saw you grab that gun, Black..”

“Black!”

Pink ran up to the doorway but Red held him back.

“What are you doing?!”

The waterworks started immediately. Yellow and Blue joined behind White, their faces showing obvious distress.

“I’m not--”

Purple took a huge risk and spun around while Black was looking at his brother. He hit the gun out of his hand and rammed him into the wall to keep him from getting it again. Now without a weapon, Black resorted to the next best thing. He locked his hands around the pilot’s throat as tight as he could. He didn’t get to squeeze for very long because Red yanked him back while Blue pried his hands away. Purple then grabbed the traitor and dragged him out of the room with Red.

“No! Let go of him!”

Pink shouted while he tried to follow, being held back protectively by Yellow. They turned a corner with the raging man.

“Wait-- Where are you taking him?!”

“To the airlock.”

Red answered.

“ _ What?!  _ No you are not!”

White then grabbed the captain’s arm and tugged on him hard to stop him.

“We all agreed we’d wait for the blood tests before using the airlock again!”

He shoved her off quickly.

“That was before we caught him trying to kill Purple the same way Orange was!”

Red continued walking even faster.

“I am not losing any more of my crew to this creature. I should’ve never let it aboard my ship.”

“No! No, Red, don’t do this!”

The younger brother was screaming desperately between his sobs.

White attempted to stop the captain once again while he and Purple were forcing Black into the airlock. He pointed at Blue and spoke strongly.

“You hold her back right now or I swear to god I will put you in here too.”

The woman glanced over her shoulder to him. He was giving Red the coldest look but began walking towards her anyways.

“Don’t you-- Don’t you dare!”

She punched at his arms when he grabbed her around the waist and took her away.

“Let go of me! Bastard! Let me go!”

Tears streamed down her face just like Pink.

Yellow quickly approached the three men struggling in the airlock. Her body was shaking but she looked absolutely numb while she put Black’s helmet on him. Pink tried to run passed her when she walked out of the airlock but she stopped him with all her might; just long enough that Red and Purple were able to get out and close the doors behind them. 

Black jumped up to the window and banged on it hard.

“You’re making a mistake! It’s Purple!”

He suddenly choked up in a sob and pressed his hand to the window, speaking in a softer voice.

“White, you are still my best friend. Pink, I couldn’t have asked for a better brother. I love you both.”

The two who loved him back screamed and resisted against the other crewmates holding them. Red stood in front of the lever with Purple at his side. He turned his head away from the sobbing messes that were Pink and White and then jerked the lever down.

“No!”

Pink’s final yell could’ve broken anyone’s heart. It was the most painful sound any of them had ever heard. Both him and White collapsed onto the floor while watching their best friend, their brother, float away from the ship and into space. He was still moving around, trying desperately to grab onto any part of the ship and get back in before it was too late. The airlock doors closed in front of him and that was the end of it. He was gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> do you still have suspicions about anyone? or do you think Black really was the impostor?


	9. Chapter 9

“I’m sor--”

Before Red could even get the words out of his mouth, he was punched with such force that he immediately dropped to the ground. White groaned and seethed sharply, shaking her hand briefly.

“I will  _ never _ forgive you for this!”

She sobbed so hard it hurt her lungs.

“You fucking selfish, uncaring son of a bitch! I hope you die the most gruesome death before you go rot in hell!”

The woman then unsteadily walked away but not without sending another full-force punch into the wall.

Pink was still on the ground. He was gripping Yellow’s arms while he sobbed uncontrollably onto her chest. Purple knelt down to Red who got a tooth knocked clear out of his mouth. Blue hesitated but decided to follow White, even if she didn’t want him around. He found her just as she was going into her room after grabbing something to wrap her hand.

“White--”

“Fuck off!”

She yelled directly into his face.

“You did nothing! You held me back!”

Her voice broke.

“You-You let him die!”

White hit the side of her fist against his chest, sobbing hard again.

“I could’ve saved him! I could’ve saved him…”

Blue caught her under the arms when she suddenly began to drop to the ground. He carefully sat the both of them down and had his arms around her trembling, limp body while she bawled. He just stayed there silently, letting her cry until she couldn’t anymore.

“I’m sorry..”

She finally mumbled after a while.

“For what?”

“Getting mad at you.”

White lifted her head. Her eyes were puffy and red. Her cheeks were stained and still wet with tears but he caressed her face anyways.

“After seeing what he did.. I think Red might’ve actually killed you if you hadn’t listened.”

She began to breathe unevenly again at the thought of losing someone else.

“Shh.”

He kissed her forehead softly.

“It’s okay. Just take a deep breath now.”

The man rubbed her cheeks with his thumbs slowly until she calmed herself.

“There we go.”

He then tilted her head up and looked into her eyes.

“Let’s get that hand taken care of, yeah?”

She nodded and sat back slightly. Blue used the things she had grabbed from medbay and was extremely gentle while wrapping her bloody knuckles.

“Thank you…”

She tucked the loose strands of hair back behind her ear and sighed heavily.

“I don’t know what’s worse. The fact that I just watched my best friend die or that he was the impostor.”

“White..”

Blue stopped for a moment, thinking of how to put it in the gentlest way.

“Black died the night we left that planet. It was no longer Black after that thing took him over. You watched a murderous, evil creature die. Not him.”

White stared down at the ground for a while and nodded.

“You’re right, I suppose.”

A few more tears fell from her face.

“Still hurts.”

“Of course it does, I’m not trying to say it doesn’t.”

He quickly clarified.

She looked up with a small smile and a sniffle.

“I know that’s not what you were saying, don’t worry.”

“Good.”

Blue reached over and wiped her tears away.

“I don’t need to think you hate me again over a misunderstanding.”

White laughed just barely. They each glanced up upon hearing footsteps coming towards them. Red passed them without a single word and disappeared into his room quickly. Guess they didn’t have to sleep in the cafeteria anymore. That was nice. Purple leaned down briefly while he was walking and pat Blue’s shoulder before also going to his room. Pink was basically sleepwalking while Yellow led him.

“I’m going to stay with him for tonight.”

She said gently.

“Oh.. Okay..”

The puffy eyed woman bit her lip softly. She had been by his side comforting him every night since the O2 sabotage.

“Come on,”

Blue whispered.

“it’s your turn to have someone take care of you while you sleep.”

He slowly helped her stand up and held her hand to keep her steady while she pulled off her suit. She sat on her bed and he gently took her hair out of her ponytail for her. She finally laid down with a heavy flop. He brought the blanket up over her shoulders, closed the door, and then sat down beside her bed. Blue kept his hand on her head and rubbed it to help her drift off.

“Sleep next to me..”

White whispered with her eyes closed. She blindly reached over to him and tugged at the sleeve of his suit.

“And take this off. I know it’s uncomfortable to sleep in.”

The man was caught off guard for a moment at her light demands. He chuckled and then nodded.

“Alright, alright.”

He worked off his suit and set it in the same corner White had put hers.

“I definitely won’t turn down sleeping in an actual bed again.”

She shifted onto her back and looked up at him.

“Actually, never mind.”

Blue stopped just as he was leaning down to get on the bed.

“Oh. That’s fine. That’s fine! We’ve been sleeping on the floor for the past three nights. What’s another?”

He shrugged with a smile anyways.

White rolled her eyes and giggled quietly.

“I’m kidding, dumbass.”

She sat up, grabbed his shoulders, and pulled him down with her. He nearly fell on top of her when she did but he caught himself and slipped into the empty spot she had made for him. The woman rested her head on his chest once he was comfortable. 

Blue didn’t complain one bit; he just wrapped his arm around her and kept her close. A few minutes passed and he was surprised to feel her suddenly raise her head back up. He had thought for sure she was already asleep.

“You okay?”

He asked quietly.

“Mhm.”

She nodded. White moved up a bit and pressed a kiss to his lips. It was a tender, yet deep kiss that he honestly wished would’ve lasted longer. After pulling away she returned her head to his chest.

“Before you think it, no, that was not a grief kiss. I’ve wanted to do that since yesterday.”

She softly said with a faint smile.

Blue couldn’t help but smile as well at her small confession. He trailed his hand up and down her back until she actually dozed off and he followed soon after, feeling quite content.

——————————

“We should be back by tomorrow evening. Earlier than I expected but I guess that’s good.”

Purple said while setting down some breakfast on the table they were all sitting at.

“How are we even going to explain all this to NASA..?”

Yellow asked softly, running her fingers through her hair.

“We’ve lost so many…”

“We just have to tell them the truth. All of it.”

The captain said with a sigh.

“But I don’t care what NASA says. We made it out alive. That’s all that matters.”

There wasn’t much conversation over breakfast. They were all still very tired; not to mention that Pink, Yellow, and White were grieving quite heavily as well. Afterwards, Pink decided to go off and work on the reactor to get his mind off of things.

“I’m going to be working in medbay.”

Yellow told them while she walked away.

“Wait, why?”

Red questioned.

“I’m curious about the blood samples. I want to see if there were any discrepancies between our blood and… and Black’s blood.”

She then disappeared from the cafeteria and the remaining four looked at each other.

“We should turn the trackers back on.”

The pilot suggested.

“And maybe try to get comms back up too.”

Red shrugged.

“Okay I guess. You two want to join us?”

He asked Blue and White.

“No thanks.”

White immediately answered. Why would she want to be around the man who hated Black  _ and _ the one who killed him?

“I’m going to do some things in weapons.”

“I’m going to go with her.”

Blue then glanced to Purple.

“As long as you don’t need me?”

He shook his head.

“Nah. I should be fine without you.”

They nodded and did as they said. White jumped into the weapons seat and searched along the screen for any possible dangers in their flight path. She shot a few asteroids away. They weren’t super close to the ship but she thought it’d be best to be safe rather than sorry. After a few minutes, she paused and gestured Blue over.

“How about you give it a try now?”

“Huh?”

His eyes widened slightly.

“I.. I don’t know how to do that. What if I fuck something up?”

She laughed lightly.

“Unless you somehow shoot the ship, you can’t really fuck up.”

“Uh, okay..”

The man slowly got up on the chair and froze up.

White waited for a minute and blinked a few times.

“You have to at least take hold of the controls.”

He still didn’t move.

“C’mon,”

She took his hands and guided them to the controls.

“just like that. There you go.”

Blue glanced over to her and she immediately saw the concern in his eyes.

“I’m just an engine repairman, White..”

“And also our copilot.” 

She patted his cheek with her hand.

“Don’t worry so much. Even if something does start to go wrong, I’m right here. But nothing is going to happen.”

He nodded slowly.

“So.. This one here fires the laser?”

“Mhm.”

“I just put the crosshairs on the asteroid and pull the trigger?”

“Yup. Simple as that.”

“No, it’s not as simple as that.”

Red snapped when he walked into the weapons room.

White turned around and glared at him.

“What the hell is your problem?”

He waved his hand at Blue and the man stepped away from the controls.

“His position is copilot and engine repair.  _ Your _ position is weapons. We don’t need anyone screwing up this ship right before we dock.”

“He wasn’t going to—“

“I don’t care!”

Red interrupted.

“I’m not taking any risks. We are all sticking to our positions and that’s it. The only exception is Pink working in electrical and that. is. it. Understood?”

White was silent.

“Understood?”

He asked harsher.

“Yes, Captain.”

She mumbled while looking away.

“Good. I’m going to go check on Yellow. White, you should go do the same with Pink. I don’t like the thought of him being alone much in the mental state he’s in.”

“He’s in this mental state because of you.”

She said, purposely bumping into Red’s shoulder when she walked passed him. 

Blue went to follow her but was stopped by his captain.

“Go help Purple.”

He looked up and saw White disappear down the hallway. He sighed, glanced to Red, and finally nodded in agreement. When he stepped into nav, Purple was standing in front of the window with glazed over eyes.

“Hey.”

Blue’s voice made him jolt slightly.

“Oh.”

He blinked upon coming back from his thoughts.

“Hey.”

“How’s it going?”

Purple plopped into one of the chairs and shrugged his shoulders.

“It’s.. going, I guess?”

He chuckled softly but a slight frown made itself apparent on his face.

“I miss her.”

Blue’s eyebrows pinched together while he sat down in the chair beside him.

“This is going to sound dumb, but I feel like I’ve failed some sort of mission because she died. Like I should’ve tried harder to keep her safe..”

“You did everything you could. I mean, you two were together almost constantly. Even before this whole impostor thing.”

“The one time I wasn’t, though, she was murdered.”

He rubbed his eyes and then scoffed.

“And you know what?”

The pilot looked to his friend. He hesitated for a moment but continued on anyway.

“Something about what happened with Black isn’t sitting with me well.”

“What?”

Blue questioned in surprise.

“I know, I know. Just hear me out.”

Purple sat back in his chair and ran his fingers through his hair.

“Black  _ adored _ Cyan. Even if he was possessed by some alien, I still don’t think he could’ve hurt her. He was so broken by her death too. I don’t think he could’ve faked it that well. Especially if he truly was some sociopathic creature.”

He crossed his arms over his chest. 

“Not to mention that I’m still suspicious of Red. He was too quick to throw Black out.”

“Do I have to remind you that you were the one helping him carry Black out?”

“I know!”

Purple snapped.

“But I think I made a mistake, Blue. A big one. I was too blinded by my jealousy and hatred of Black that I didn’t even stop to reason with myself. We should’ve listened to White. We should’ve waited for the blood results..”

He shook his head.

“There’s something wrong with Red. There has been since we got off the planet and I know you’ve noticed too.”

Blue stayed silent. After a few moments of awkward silence, Purple continued.

“I haven’t redirected our course.”

“Are you fucking kidding me, Purple?”

The copilot stood up abruptly and sighed in annoyance.

“You can’t do that to the rest of us because of your guilt finally getting to you.”

“You can’t stand there and tell me you are  _ one-hundred percent  _ sure Red is safe.”

Purple stared at him and there was another silence. Blue turned his back to him and put his hands on top of his head with a huff.

“I knew it. You’re uncertain too.”

“Shut up.”

Blue snapped again, quieting his voice and stepping closer to the other.

“We don’t need to freak everyone else out or turn against each other again. This stays between you and me. Yellow is still working on the blood samples so we are going to keep our mouths shut until she says something.”

The two men agreed finally and tried to push their suspicions to the depths of their minds. All of them ate in the cafeteria except for Yellow. She grabbed a plate of food and disappeared into the med bay again. No one said anything about it. This was her way of coping. There wasn’t much conversation either. Pink and White talked a little; most likely about Black because there were some tears every now and then throughout their conversation. Purple and Blue did their best to not make it obvious they were avoiding Red. It was so hard to still treat him as their captain. 

“I don’t know about you all, but I’m going to turn in for the night. Make the time go by faster before we get to the station.”

Red stood up and straightened out his shirt. He had a casual smile on his face that made Blue and Purple feel sick to their stomachs. 

“Goodnight.”

Purple answered as relaxed as he could.

When he had exited the cafeteria, Pink got up as well.

“I think I'm going to do the same. I’m.. I'm tired.”

White lightly squeezed his arm and then gave him a small smile.

“Okay.”

With just three left in the cafeteria, Purple tried to keep himself from talking about his suspicions by starting an entirely new topic.

“So which one of you finally made the move?”

“Huh?”

The other two looked at him in confusion.

The pilot glanced down to where Blue and White were holding hands under the table. She punched Blue’s shoulder with her free hand.

“You told him?”

“He didn’t tell me anything. I figured out his little schoolboy crush on you a while ago.”

Purple smiled slightly.

“I’m happy for you two. We needed to have at least one good thing come from this trip..”

White squeezed Blue’s hand and then took a small breath before speaking.

“I made the first move.”

She hummed softly, glancing to the man she was holding onto and then to the other. She still really didn’t like Purple but she wanted to make amends anyways. Maybe this moment would help. And if Blue was friends with him, maybe he wasn’t as bad as she thought.

“Oh?”

The pilot chuckled a bit.

“Yeah. I finally had to just go for it because I don’t think he got any of the hints I was dropping.”

She teased.

“What? That’s not true!”

“I’m not surprised.”

Purple said with a shrug.

“Hey!”

Blue stuttered over his words.

“I-I.. I got the hints!”

“What were they then?”

White asked with a wide grin.

“And why did you still make me kiss you first?”

There was a long silence while the engine repairman tried to search for answers. He finally just huffed and looked away from them both.

“I don’t like that you guys are ganging up on me.”

Purple and White laughed for a brief moment. The three talked casually about the things they were planning on doing after returning home from this mission. The overall consensus was to try and forget about everything that happened on The Skeld. It’d definitely be difficult for them. When the conversation died down, White suggested to Blue that they go to bed as well. The thought of a good night’s sleep was so appealing to them that there was no argument. On their way to the rooms, they passed med bay and saw Yellow still working away at the samples. It had nearly become an unhealthy obsession.

Yellow glanced to the clock on the wall with a slow blink. It was nearly 2am and all her other crewmates were fast asleep. She wasn’t about to stop though. She was almost done processing the blood samples. She’d have the results any minute now. She was tapping her pen against her notebook while the timer beeped as it got closer to the end. Her eyes shot up when the beeping stopped. Standing up and going over to the sampler, she looked over the nine samples she had. Everyone but Cyan’s. Her pen clattered to the floor upon seeing the plain truth before her eyes. There  _ was  _ a difference between human blood and the alien blood. Yellow jumped when she heard clanking coming from the vent nearby. She breathed in shakily and turned to sprint out the door. It slammed shut in front of her though.

“I really wish you wouldn’t have kept studying those samples.”

The impostor spoke while crawling out from the vent. 

“How could you do this?”

She asked, turning around to face the murderer.

“I didn’t want to.”

“Then don’t! Stop it right here. Right now.”

Yellow pleaded desperately with her back up against the door as closely as possible.

“Please, don’t do this.”

“You saw the blood test results. You've seen who I am now. I can’t just let you go.”

The impostor spun a blade around in their hand and then stepped towards the doctor.

“I don’t have a choice..”

“No. No, no. No, please..  _ Please _ .”

She snapped around and banged loudly on the door.

“Help! Help, me! Please!”

She sobbed.

“I’m sorry, Yellow. Please forgive me..”

“Hel—“

Her voice cut out sharply when the knife pierced her in the back. She looked down to see the tip of it protruding all the way through her chest. Yellow stumbled when the knife was ripped out and immediately shoved back through her skin again. She finally fell forward against the med bay doors after the stabbing had stopped.

A loud wail startled everyone awake. They hurried towards where they heard hyperventilating cries.

“No! No, please no!”

Pink sobbed loudly, rocking back and forth with Yellow’s blood-drenched body in his arms. 

White gasped and quickly went to his side.

“Pink, are you hurt?”

She asked worriedly. With the amount of blood that was on him, she wasn’t sure if he had been stabbed too or not.

“I heard something.. while I was sleeping. I-I came.. to check.. and the doors were closed.”

He spoke between sharp, unsteady breaths.

“They opened just as.. just as I walked up to them and—”

Pink looked down at Yellow and then burst out into screaming sobs once again. He couldn’t believe that he had now lost two of the three people he cared about the most. 

Red walked into the med bay and shifted the shattered glass around with his fingers.

“Someone destroyed the blood samples.”

He sighed.

“She must’ve found out who it was.”

“After all this..”

White’s voice trembled.

“After all the loss we’ve endured.. All the innocent people we’ve killed.. And that monster is still alive?”

She laughed darkly.

“You know what? At this point, I hope the impostor wins.”

Everyone looked at her with wide eyes.

“White..”

Blue started.

“No, I mean it! Let them win! Let our deaths be a message to NASA to not fuck with whatever’s on that godforsaken planet!”

She had been kneeling beside Pink but ended up falling back onto her ass during her breakdown. Blue went over and held her against him to try and calm her down. 

Purple hit the wall straight on with his fist.

“I should’ve said something.”

He faced all of them.

“I  _ knew _ something was still off. Black’s death didn’t sit right with me. I fucked up.”

He then directed his words to Red.

“I should’ve never blindly followed your lead! You were so quick to throw him and Green off this ship.. I shouldn’t have ever doubted my initial suspicions. You really are the impostor, aren’t you?”

————————

  
  


“We have a responsibility to tell them!”

Green snapped around and jabbed his fingers into Red’s chest.

“You know we can’t! NASA will have our asses if we give them even the slightest hint of why we’re really on this planet.”

He then continued on walking further away from the rest of the crew.

“What if something happens and we need to warn them?”

The captain asked, hesitantly following Green.

“This is my crew. Each one of their lives matters more than this ‘secret mission’.”

He then grabbed him by the arm to stop him.

“I won’t put them at risk. We’re just going to tell NASA that we couldn’t find a specimen and we’re getting off this rock.”

The scientist ripped his arm away from Red’s hold and then shoved his shoulders hard enough to almost make him fall.

“Grow a set you fucking coward! I’ve taken every precaution to make sure the specimen is kept contained until we get to the station. This could be a revolutionary discovery and  _ our _ names will be the ones that go down in history.”

“I don’t care about being in the history books! If something bad happens, we’ll be to blame. We won’t be heroes, we’ll be murderers.”

Red shook his head.

“You’re being a selfish bastard, you know that Green? You’re putting your own desire for fame above the lives of people who would die protecting you.”

“This is for the sake for discovery and science! Many people have died to make the advancements we have now. All of our lives are at risk and if we don’t succeed, NASA will just send some other poor souls here. I know you and I can get this done right.”

Red had nothing more to argue against. Green had a point but the captain still didn’t like the fact that  _ his  _ crew had to be the ones to do this. Once realizing that there was no more argument, Green glanced down at the device in his hand that beeped every now and then.

“That way.”

He hurriedly followed the pings on the screen.

“There’s one over here, hurry up. Do you have the capsule?”

Red sighed and popped open the capsule.

“Yeah.”

He felt uneasy when they came across the first slithering freak. It slunk around in the sand and tried to run away when Green approached it.

“These people are like our family though. And we don’t know what this thing is capable of doing. It could end up killing us all. Maybe we should talk to NASA about—“

“Quick! The capsule!”

The scientist snapped his fingers back and Red hesitated before giving up and just putting it in his hand.

He stepped away, watching while Green wrestled to get the creature into the capsule. It shrieked loudly and dust flew up ever so slightly around them. It made him feel sick to his stomach… Red then looked to the communicator on the forearm of his suit when an alarm went off. It was warning him that there was a small tear near his ankle. Nothing that he needed to worry about in that very moment but he’d definitely need to patch it once on the ship again. Just when he reached down to inspect the damage, he jolted and his legs suddenly gave out from under him. He hit the ground hard but not hard enough that Green noticed. He took in a sharp, pained breath. The feeling of burning pins and needles shot up from his legs to his chest until he was choking on something forcing its way down his throat. It only took those few, brief seconds for him to get completely taken over. The creature stumbled a bit when it stood up in its new body for the first time, but it quickly gained its bearings. 

Green popped up excitedly.

“Yes!”

He held the capsule in his hands. The specimen was wildly flailing about inside.

“I’ve got it. Let’s get back to the ship.”

He nudged Red’s arm before beginning to walk back. He was lucky to not have died at that very moment. Seeing one of his own boxed up in that small container infuriated Red to his core. He kept himself calm though. He knew he’d want more than a swift revenge. No, he wanted something much more extreme.

When everyone else was aboard the ship and sleeping soundly, Red walked out of his room. He used the vents to get into medbay unseen and he trailed his hand over the new container his comrade was trapped in.

“There are nine others on this ship.”

He punched through the thick glass like it was paper.

“Go. Find one that you like and meet me in the cafeteria. Make sure you’re not seen.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> did y’all see that coming?? (i hope not 🥺)  
> were you right about Red? who do you think the other impostor is? is the other one still on the ship or did they get ejected already?


	10. Chapter 10

The four of them stared at the man they once considered their captain. He had crossed his arms over his chest and kept his eyes down. When he finally looked up, a chill ran down their spines. His eyes were deep purple and a smug grin tugged at his lips.

“Aw, look at you. You finally figured it out.”

Red scoffed when their jaws dropped.

“Oh don’t look so surprised.”

The purple faded and his ‘human’ eye color returned.

“I knew you all suspected me from the very beginning. After all, you would’ve never truly respected a man who treated you the way Red did when he came back from that planet.”

He chuckled.

“But all I had to do was plant that little seed of doubt in each of your minds. From there I just sat back and watched while you tore each other apart.”

“Cyan.. Orange.. and Yellow.. You murdered them in cold blood!”

Purple went to grab him by his shirt collar but he was stopped in his tracks.

“I could easily have you join them.”

Red’s voice sounded deeper and distorted while he gripped the pilot by his neck.

“You don’t even know how difficult it was for me to not kill you every time you accused me.”

He sighed.

“That was the only thing that kept you alive. I couldn’t kill the one person who constantly blamed me. That would’ve given it away sooner than I wanted.”

“You wanted us to catch you..?”

Pink asked brokenly. 

“Catch me? Oh, absolutely.”

He tossed Purple to the ground like he weighed nothing.

“I’ve just been the mastermind behind all this. Unlike you all think,  _ my _ hands aren’t the ones that are bloodstained.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

White stood up and Blue held her steady while she did.

Red rolled his eyes.

“You humans really are simpleminded.”

He glanced down at Yellow’s body before returning his gaze to the group.

“Did you really think I would’ve been able to do all this on my own? I came up with the plans. My brethren carried them out.”

“You’re just trying to trick us again!”

Purple retaliated.

“You are the only one among us that would be capable of such terrible things!”

“I’d think again.”

Red shifted his gaze.

“Why don’t you tell them the truth, hm? Tell them that you betrayed each one of them.”

White stepped back slightly and looked at the man who had been holding her.

“Blue.. What is he talking about..?”

The man shook his head with his eyes closed and tried to keep hold of her.

“I tried to back out.”

She struggled against him but the grip he had on her was unbreakable. When Blue opened his eyes again, she saw his irises turn purple.

“I didn’t want to kill anymore!”

“But you still did!”

Red laughed despite the deadly glare he was getting from the other impostor. He looked to White who was still trying to get away from Blue.

“And do you know why he wanted to back out? Oh, it’s just too cute.”

“Shut your mouth!”

Blue snapped.

“No!”

Red nearly growled, his voice bouncing between his normal tone and the distorted voice of the alien.

“You became weak! You fell for this.. this  _ human _ and you let your meat sack begin to take control of his mind again.”

White finally stopped squirming so much. She still tried to keep her distance though.

“You.. You what?”

When their eyes met, she was surprised to see that the purple wasn’t the exact same as Red’s. It was mixed with the natural green of Blue’s true eyes. 

“He threatened to kill you if I didn’t listen to him.”

He said gently to her; a desperate tone to his voice as he prayed she would try to understand.

“I couldn’t lose the woman who made me want to be human again.”

“You killed Cyan.”

Purple was on the brink of tears while he slowly stood back up.

“I trusted you.. You were my friend.”

“I.. I wasn’t myself at all. That was completely this creature’s doing. I hadn’t yet snapped out of it..”

Blue tried to reason with the man but he could tell that he wasn’t having it.

Despite his anger at him, Purple returned the focus onto Red.

“It’s your turn to get into the airlock, you bastard.”

The ‘captain’s’ eyes flashed back to purple and he dropped his arms to his side.

“And how do you plan on doing that? I’m fifty times stronger than all of you put together.”

Pink finally let Yellow lay flat on the ground and he shakily rose to his feet. He glanced over to Blue.

“If we help you, can you handle him?”

The other impostor nodded and it immediately made Red sigh heavily.

“You know what? I’m quite sick of this.”

He stared down the four that were trying to surround him. With a sickening, distorted voice, he mumbled under his breath.

“I think it’s about time I get my own hands dirty.”

His bones cracked and popped and blood dripped from his abdomen as his torso began to tear itself in half.

“What the fuck..?”

Blue yanked White behind him while she spoke and he explained as fast as he could.

“He’s completely taken over Red now. This is what the creatures look like once they’ve fully meshed with their vessel.”

Teeth forced through his skin while the upper half of Red’s body tilted back to reveal a long, pointed tongue. It slowly uncurled itself from the inside of the ‘mouth’ and everyone tried to move away. It took only a split second for the tongue to shoot forward. Blue shoved Purple out of the way but he let out a sharp yell when the tongue pierced through his shoulder. Both the pilot and co-pilot collapsed to the ground. Blue sat up as quickly as he could to protect his now injured friend. Red’s body snapped back together and he frowned in disgust.

“You’re pathetic. A disgrace to our kind.”

“I am not like you.”

The man responded strongly, standing his ground to block Red from the others while they dragged Purple out of the medbay.

He chuckled darkly and wiped the blood that had spilled out the corner of his mouth. 

“No, you’re worse. You killed three of these people in cold blood.”

“Not in cold blood.”

Blue curled his hands into fists.

“You threatened to kill White. And I know you wouldn’t have shown her the same swiftness I showed the others.”

“You’re right.”

He shrugged with a smug smile.

“I’m done talking and I’m done dealing with your foolish empathy. It’s disgusting.”

“What are you going to do about it? We both know you don’t yet have the energy to come after me.  _ You’re  _ the one who is weak now.”

“Perfect.”

A gunshot rang throughout the medbay and Blue looked back to see White holding a pistol out in front of herself. Red stumbled back and touched his hand to the bleeding wound in his abdomen.

“If you're as smart as you say you are, ‘Captain’, then you really shouldn’t have hid all the weapons in your own room.”

Blue quickly grabbed her by the shoulders and backed her away.

“Get out of here! Let me handle him. You, Pink, and Purple get to safety.”

He paused and glanced down.

“Use the escape pods. Their trackers will turn on the moment they're released and someone can rescue you all.”

“I’ll get the guys into a pod but I’m staying here to help you.”

She turned to carry out her own plan but she was caught by the arm.

“No, you’re going with them.”

He reiterated, glancing over his shoulder to see Red still struggling a bit to recover from the bullet.

“I won’t put you in any more danger than you already have been.”

“You’ve been protecting me this whole time.”

White glared at him.

“I’ve been safer than anyone else on this ship. Now it’s my turn to pay my dues.”

Her eyes then suddenly widened and she tried to yank Blue out of the way. She wasn’t quick enough and he was ripped back.

“Blue!”

The two tumbled to the floor but Blue was able to pin Red down.

“Just fucking go!”

He yelled out to her and the woman finally rushed off.

“Come on, come on!”

She said while helping Pink stand Purple up.

“What’s going on?”

Pink supported Purple as best as he could so they could keep up with her.

“Get your suits on. We’re using the escape pods. Blue—“

She shook her head and walked faster.

“Blue‘s holding Red off for us.”

“What? He’s really turning on him..?”

Purple winced since walking at this fast of a pace and also holding pressure on his wound wasn’t the best combination. 

“Did you notice his eyes?”

The men were silent.

“They’re not completely purple like Red’s. His human side is still there.”

Once they had hurriedly pulled on their suits and arrived at the escape pods, Pink stumbled into one while holding Purple. They looked at White and Pink held out his hand to her.

“Get in!”

White stopped and stared at his hand.

“Sorry, this is a trip you two are making without me.”

She kicked Pink back into the escape pod and slammed the door closed. A press of a few buttons secured the two men’s safety and she watched while the pod shot off into space. Pink was desperately pounding at the pod’s window but a wave of relief came over her to know that at least two made it out alive. There was a loud crash down the hallway that made the feeling of relief get cut short.

“Blue..”

The woman turned on her heel and sprinted back towards the medbay. She nearly skidded to a stop right at the door. She gasped and it made Red look up. His knuckles were bloodied and his eyes had once again been flooded with purple. Blue laid basically unconscious in the middle of the floor. White’s heart raced and she hesitated at first, not wanting to leave Blue, but she ran off towards the cafeteria. Looking back over her shoulder, she didn’t see Red coming after her. She slowed down a bit until her legs almost gave out from under her when she saw him crawling out of the cafeteria vent.

“Why are you even trying to outrun me?”

He asked, his voice distorted and grossly excited.

“I can find you no matter where you go, sweetheart.”

White ripped the pistol out from her side pocket and took another shot at him. He just barely dodged the shot but it gave her enough time to escape the cafeteria before Red tried closing the doors on her. She went into the comms room as fast as she could and sat at the chair. She glanced over the screen, desperate to figure out a way to contact NASA. Just when she was able to get the screens turned on she was suddenly ripped backwards from the chair. The force she hit the ground with knocked the wind clear out of her chest and made her groan sharply. 

“Hm, what’s this? Trying to call for help?”

He laughed.

“You do know NASA would blow this ship to pieces if you told them, right? They wouldn’t even try to save you.”

“I’m not an idiot.”

She sat up slightly and winced in pain.

“I want them to. It’s better than letting you get loose.”

“That’s cute. You'd send the three of us to our deaths just to keep me from getting to the station, huh?”

“I won’t let you kill all those people.”

He knelt down and grabbed her harshly by the face.

“Have you even taken a good look at our flight path? Can you not tell that we’re heading back to my planet?”

He asked with a smirk.

“I’m not going to  _ kill _ those people. I’m going to make them like me. Then I’ll send them out to the furthest reaches of the galaxy. Consider it a galactic takeover.”

Red turned her face to the side and looked her over.

“You know.. Maybe it’s a good thing Blue convinced me to keep you alive. You'd make a good vessel and I‘d definitely like to have a female companion.”

White tried to shove him away in disgust but he ended up scooping her up over his shoulder with ease.

“Let go of me!”

She yelled before attempting to grab her gun again.

“Ah ah.”

The man ripped it out of her hand just when she got a hold of it and he crushed it in his grasp.

“You wouldn’t be able to kill me with this anyways.”

He then huffed and adjusted her on his shoulder while he walked out of the comms room.

“Stop squirming. It’s annoying.”

“Where are you taking me?”

She asked, struggling even more and trying to shove herself off his shoulder.

“Medbay. I’m just going to keep you sedated until we get back to my planet. I’ll find a good match for you, let it take you over, and then we’ll fill this ship with our kind.”

Red sighed happily.

“It’s going to be beautiful.”

“What are you going to do with Blue?”

He scoffed.

“Dispose of him. He’s useless to me now. He’s become too human.”

_ Absolutely not.  _ White swung her leg back and was able to knee the impostor directly in his gunshot wound. It made him loosen his grip on her just enough that she was able to fall out of his hold. She stumbled so much that she hit the ground at the same time that Red dropped down to his knee. He looked up at her with such an intense glare that that alone could’ve killed her. White quickly scooted away from him to put as much space between them as possible. She finally stood up and ran off passed electrical. If she could just get into medbay alone with Blue.. The two of them might be able to take on Red. She wasn’t even able to get two steps away from security though. White was grabbed around the waist and basically thrown into the room. The moment she hit the floor she also heard the doors shut. 

“Did you really think you’d get away from me when there are vents all over this ship?”

Red dragged her over to him by her ankles and he sat her up, gripping both her wrists quite hard.

“You’re a feisty one. I like that, but only to an extent.”

A sharp shiver ran up White’s spine from the disturbing smirk he had on his face.

“Test me again,”

He yanked her up to her feet and pinned her roughly on the wall.

“and maybe I won’t be so nice.”

Both of them looked to the entrance when one of the doors caved in. White shoved her way out of his hold and ducked down under the desk. The door was kicked in with such force that it went flying and slammed Red up against the wall. The woman jolted when Blue took her by the arm and brought her over to him. His eyes were that mix of green and purple once again but it faded back to normal when he had her in his hold.

“Did he hurt you?”

He asked quickly, looking her over while gently squeezing her shoulders.

“Blue!”

White basically jumped into his arms and buried her face in his neck.

“He didn’t.. Not too much at least.”

She leaned back and lightly put her hands on his bloodied face.

“Are  _ you _ okay? You look terrible..”

He chuckled.

“Thanks.”

Blue grabbed one of her hands and hastily pulled her down the hallway.

“I’m alright, I just need to get you safe.”

He glanced back into security one more time to see Red struggling to get out from behind the door that held him on the wall.

“I was going to have NASA blow up the ship.”

She suddenly blurted out.

“What?”

He paused for only a second but continued on.

“I mean, that’s fine. Just as long as you’re not still here when it happens.”

“I’m not leaving you.”

White stopped in her tracks and yanked him back.

“I don’t care if I die. Despite all that’s happened.. You’re still the only person I’ll ever trust and I refuse to let you go.”

Blue was kind of shell-shocked by her words. She really knew how to make him weak; even if it wasn’t on purpose. He tried to speak but his voice wouldn’t come through. Not knowing how to respond, he pulled her close and kissed her sweetly. He wanted it to last much longer but he knew they didn’t have any time to spare. After breaking away he ran his fingers through her messy hair.

“If that’s how you feel, then we’re getting out of here together. Alive.”

The sound of a loud bang made White gasp. Red had been able to move the door.

“Hurry up.”

“What are we going to do?”

“Are there more weapons in Red’s room?”

“I think so.”

“Guns won’t kill him but they’ll at least slow him down. Maybe enough for us to get word out to NASA.”

He looked over his shoulder to her.

“We’ll use the other escape pod after we get in contact with them, okay?”

White nodded and followed after him quickly. They each armed themselves and made sure to have their helmets on before going through the cafeteria once again to get to comms. Both of them jolted upon hearing the banging in the vents under their feet.

“ _ You can’t run from me _ !”

Red’s voice was sing-songy while he spoke in that distorted tone. It sent a shiver up White’s spine. 

“ _ Just give in. The three of us could be gods in a universe that we create. Isn’t that a lovely idea _ ?”

Blue suddenly collapsed to the ground and ripped off his helmet. He let out a pained groan and held his head.

“Blue!”

She halted when she heard the thump on the ground. The woman went to pull him back onto his feet but he backed away.

“No!”

He rocked back and forth slightly. The pain in his head was excruciating and fear was beginning to take over his mind.

“Please keep your distance..”

He whimpered before finally looking up at White. 

Her heart skipped a beat at the sight of his eyes barely showing any more green.

“W-What’s happening to you?”

“It’s Red.. He’s playing into my—  _ the alien’s  _ ego. Trying to get it to fully consume my mind.”

Blue groaned again and pressed the palms of his hands against his temples tightly. He then suddenly relaxed and dropped his hands. His voice mimicked the same distortion Red’s had but just less intense.

“You could be even safer if you joined Red and me.”

He then gasped sharply, his eyes going completely green again, and his tone returned to normal.

“No.. No.”

“ _ Aw, would you look at that? _ ”

Red’s sinister voice echoed around them.

“ _ Your love for her is making your mind vulnerable, Blue. _ ”

White huffed and grabbed his arm despite his plea for her not to. Before he could retaliate, she spoke quickly.

“I just need to get you away from him. You’ll be fine.  _ I  _ will be fine.”

She yanked him up onto his feet and dragged him along behind her. He stumbled a bit, still holding his free hand against his pounding head.

“I don’t want to hurt you.”

“You won’t.”

“But—“

“ _ You won’t _ .”

She repeated again strongly. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> did y'all suspect Blue to really be the other impostor?? I hope I didn't make it too obvious up to this point
> 
> also, fun fact, in my original plan for this story Red wasn't ever an impostor, only Blue was. idk how it happened but that definitely changed lmaooo
> 
> (and i was cringing the entire time i was writing the part about Red wanting to make White his companion bLEH im so sorry that was gross but i just wanted there to be another reason to show Blue's protective side)


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> here’s the beginning of the end.. hope you’re ready for the last chapter

Red’s loud banging in the vents followed them all the way into storage and Blue stopped. White looked back at him, confused, and tried to tug him forward but he stayed still. He tapped a few buttons on his communicator and the doors enclosed them in storage.

“That should hold him off for a little bit.”

He saw the obvious distress and uncertainty in White’s eyes.

“We can’t wait for NASA.”

“What do you mean?”

“Red is smart. He knows what we’re doing. By the time NASA gets our message and is able to do something about it, he’ll have already shut down the trackers and flown the ship far away from here.”

“Well what are we supposed to do then?”

Blue paused and glanced down.

“We have to blow up the ship ourselves.”

“..How?”

The man shifted closer to her and showed her his communicator. The screen was tinted red and showed icons that weren’t on White’s.

“I can sabotage the reactor. It’ll meltdown which will send a chain reaction throughout the ship. The engines will blow, electrical will go out which will shut down the shields, then O2 will be drained almost immediately. It takes two people to stop the meltdown so once it starts, he can’t stop us.”

Blue took in a deep breath as his body was slowly relaxing since Red’s voice had stopped messing with his mind.

“We’ll have only two minutes to get out and into an escape pod before we’re blown to smithereens as well. It’s our best option but..”

“Why does there always have to be a but?”

White sighed.

“We have to start up the reactor before I can sabotage it and there are two vents in there.”

He looked to the woman he had quickly fallen in love with. He was going to protect her at all costs.

“He  _ will _ come for us.”

She met their eyes and smirked, swinging the shotgun she had slung over her back to the front of her.

“And we’ll be ready.”

Blue smiled slightly and pulled her over to the doors. His communicator beeped and they opened right when he approached them. The two ran up through the hallways and made it into the reactor room without seeing the ‘uninvited guest’.

“You’ll have to start the reactor. With the way my eyes see things, I can’t figure out the pattern.”

White nodded and then quickly began working on the control pad while the other guarded her. He held a shotgun as well in his hands and had a pistol at each hip just for good measure.

“Fuck!”

She startled him.

“What?”

He asked quickly.

‘Sorry -  _ Fuck me _ \- I screwed up the start code twice in a row. I’m stressed.”

“It’s alright.”

Blue spoke softly.

“Just keep trying.”

White took a deep breath in and continued on trying to start the reactor. After passing the third stage, she started to feel a bit more confident. Right up until she heard banging in the vents again. They were close too.

“Here he comes. Keep going though.”

Blue instructed her, cocking back his gun and glancing between the two vents.

“ _ What are you up to now, hm, Blue? _ ”

His distorted laugh made White feel sick to her stomach.

“ _ Give up this escape tactic. You’ll only get her killed. _ ”

Both Blue and White flinched at the horrible screeching sound that came from Red sliding the vent open.

“I’ll give you one more chance.”

The woman desperately tried to not look away from the control pad but she could see him crawling up to the floor from the corner of her eye.

“Join me again. The two of you. I’ll even let you have her all to yourself - completely human if you’d like.”

Blue’s body twitched and he tried to hide his internal battle with the alien attempting to take control.

“I’ll die before joining you again.”

Red’s eyes shone purple and his voice deepened.

“So be it.”

Despite the alien squeezing its grabby little hands around his mind, Blue let buckshot litter the impostor’s body. Three shots went off until he had to stop to reload. Red was taken aback by the blasts and, in some spots, it was surprising his body was even still in one piece. Slowly, the skin began to pull itself back together.

“White. We need to go. ASAP.”

Blue said as gently as he could while stuffing ammo into the shotgun.

“I know, I know!”

She watched the screen carefully while the lights blinked in their specific pattern.

“I can’t decide which will make you suffer more: Kill her in front of you or, the one I like, have you watch me turn her and make her mine.”

Red’s flesh squelched and he brokenly stumbled towards Blue.

“Either way I’m going to kill you.”

His midsection then began to open up once again. Teeth sharp enough to shred human skin appeared and the dagger-like tongue slowly slid its way out.

The man pulled the trigger but nothing happened. He tried again. Nothing. The impostor’s tongue zoned in on its target and readied itself.

“Smile, you son of a bitch.”

White shoved Blue out of the way and her body absorbed the kick of her gun when the shot went off. It hit Red directly in the ‘mouth’ and nearly blew his tongue completely off. She then pressed the final button on the control pad and a whirring sound signaled the start up of the reactor. Red screeched in agony while the other two left the reactor room as fast as they could. 

“You stole that from Jaws.”

Blue grinned at her.

She rolled her eyes and moved him along quickly.

“It was a good line, shut up.”

He tapped a few buttons on his communicator and blaring alarms echoed through The Skeld.

“We just might get away with this.”

He laughed lightly while they ran towards the escape pods.

“Please, for the love of god, don’t jinx us.”

Once at the escape pods, White opened up the door and waited for Blue to get in with her.

“Are you planning on getting in  _ after _ the ship blows up? Come on!”

She said impatiently.

He just stood there with a sad smile on his face.

“I can’t go with you.”

He pulled off his helmet and blinked to show his mixed purple and green eyes.

“I’m not fully human. There’s no telling what I’ll do in the future. I could become just like Red.”

White shook her head and ripped off her helmet, tossing it to the ground.

“What in the hell do you think you’re talking about?”

She grabbed him by the face and looked in his eyes. They weren’t human but it didn’t phase her.

“You went from cold-blood alien killer to lifesaver. Pink, Purple,  _ me _ … We wouldn’t be alive without you. You could never become like Red.”

The woman pulled him down slightly so their foreheads could touch.

“You’re human enough for me. That’s all that matters.”

Blue’s eyebrows pinched together and he closed his eyes when he felt her skin on his.

“NASA won’t let me live, you know that, right?”

He gently took her hands off his face.

“Either they kill me the moment they see I’m not a full blooded human or they lock me away forever to run tests on me.”

He sighed and kissed her hand.

“Thank you for bringing me this far back to humanity.”

White saw from a mile away what he was about to do. Just when he shoved her towards the open escape pod, she gripped his suit and used her full body weight to yank him in with her. He landed directly on top of her but it didn’t keep her from slamming the eject button. The pod door sealed shut before he could even sit up and the two of them tumbled to the other side of the pod when it launched. After the force of the launch eased away, he breathed heavily.

“What did you do?”

Blue’s question was angry but he was quickly corrected by a hard slap to the face.

“Don’t you dare try to leave me again!”

Tears welled up in her eyes and her body was beginning to tremble.

“You dumb motherfucker, what do you think ‘I won’t leave this ship without you.’ means?”

She wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled herself close to him. The man gazed out the window in front of him and had to squint his eyes a bit from the bright explosion. They were already so far from The Skeld, he hadn’t even noticed. That was the end of it though. No more Skeld. No more Red. But he was still here… 

“Don’t ever pull that shit with me again..”

She mumbled, clinging to him desperately.

Feeling her hold him so tightly and with such love made him give in. Blue wrapped his arms around her body and buried his face in her neck. Whether it was human or not, his heart belonged to her.

“I won’t... I’m sorry. I’m here to stay.”

Floating along in the endless space, they were finally able to be at ease. The two of them fell asleep in each others’ hold without even realizing it. Blue suddenly snapped awake when the pod jostled slightly. He held White protectively and glanced around before gasping softly.

“White..”

He ran his fingers through her hair to wake her up.

“Look. Look, we’re getting picked up.”

She lifted her head to see the escape pod being pulled into the loading dock of another ship. She then sat up and smiled brightly to Blue.

“We made it.”

They both laughed in relief and White pressed a sweet kiss to his lips.

Though they were nervous to leave all their weapons behind, they exited the escape pod and joined this new crew. They were on a small transport ship heading to the docking station as well.

“I’m Captain Andy,”

The woman said while gesturing for the two ‘hitchhikers’ to follow her.

“but just Andy is fine.”

Blue laced his fingers with White’s while they followed.

“Thank you for picking us up.”

He began.

“We’ve been through a lot.”

“I’m.. I’m not even sure if you’ll believe us when we tell you..”

White said hesitantly.

“We already do.”

Another crewmember beamed. He saw the confusion of both their faces and then laughed softly.

“Just wait. You’ll understand why in just a moment.”

The two kept close to each other as they were unsure of what was to come next. The captain led them through the ship and then paused before opening a door.

“This is our medbay. Small, but good enough. We’ll check you guys out here.”

She pushed the door open slowly.

“Also, I believe some familiar faces might boost your spirits.”

The doctor of this crew was taking care of Purple’s wound while he sat upright on a bed.

“Holy shit.”

He stood up carefully and walked over to them, embracing them both in as good of a hug as he could give.

“You guys made it out.”

“White!”

Her ears perked up at the sound of her name and Purple released her from his hug so she could brace herself for Pink sprinting at her. He basically slammed into her and hugged her so hard it could’ve popped her lungs. She hugged him back just as hard though.

“You’re okay! Oh my god, you’re okay.”

White stepped back and looked over her best friend. He was a little bruised but, other than that, he was fine and that’s all that mattered to her.

Purple looked at Blue who was avoiding his gaze.

“It wasn’t you.”

He looked up, confused.

“With Cyan. It wasn’t you. I don’t hold anything against you.”

The pilot then gave his co-pilot another hug to solidify his words.

“In the end, you saved us”

He pulled back.

“But not just us. Everyone on the docking station. Probably everyone on earth too.”

Blue stayed silent for a bit.

“I’m not human, Purple.”

He sighed, not knowing what to say at first. He then smiled.

“You finally made your move, huh?”

He gestured to White and the ex-impostor nodded briefly.

“I don’t think you can care about someone so much and  _ not _ be human.”

Purple scoffed.

“Hell, she’s most likely going to make you more and more human each day. One of these days, that thing inside you is going to die off - if it hasn’t already.”

That finally made him ease up. Looking to White made him smile as well and he listened in to her and Pink’s conversation.

“Next time we’re getting into an escape pod,  _ you get in _ .”

The young male said while gripping her shoulders and shaking them slightly.

“And maybe next time don’t kick Pink in the chest so hard, yeah?”

He spoke lightly while slowly walking weakly around the back corner of the medbay.

“My little brother likes to milk every injury he gets. Little attention whore.”

Black laughed softly and White was frozen in place. Pink went over to support his brother over to her. She breathed in sharply after realizing that she was holding her breath and the next thing she knew, she was embracing him. The feeling of hugging Black, who she thought was dead, was surreal to her.

“I don’t understand.”

She stepped back and looked at him with joyful tears.

“You.. You went out the airlock.”

He carefully sat down on a nearby bed and let out a small groan.

“Jeremiah found me.”

He pointed to the crewmember who had spoken to Blue and White briefly.

“He was doing a test run of a radar that scans for signs of life. Just happened to find my signs.”

“He was standing on death’s door when Jeremiah brought him in.”

The doctor said.

“There was maybe thirty minutes of oxygen left in his suit. The extended time of floating around without gravity weakened his body a bit but he’ll be fine in a few days.”

“Yeah, I’m officially retiring from space after this.”

Black laughed while rubbing the back of his neck.

In the days leading up to their arrival at the docking station, everyone worked to help Blue conceal his alien half. Jeremiah, Black, and Pink worked together to create a special type of ID card that would make it possible for him to get through body scanners unnoticed. Andy and Purple helped White and Blue get new identities and a fresh start on Mars. NASA would be told that the two of them died with Red in the explosion. After having covered all the bases, things seemed to finally be back to normal. People were laughing, having fun, and relaxing.

White stepped into the nav room where Blue had been making himself useful. He told them he wanted to do something in return for everything they did to help him.

“Hey.”

He glanced back and smiled at her.

“Hey.”

“How are things going?”

“Oh, you know, how things in space usually are. Uneventful.”

She laughed.

“We definitely didn’t get the ‘usual’ space experience then.”

Blue chuckled as well and switched into autopilot before standing.

“No we did not.”

He walked over to her and she proceeded to wrap her arms around his waist. He pressed a kiss to the top of her head and held her softly but closely.

“Are you sure you want to do this with me? Go to Mars and all? I mean, you’ll be starting a whole new life…”

White looked up to him and reached her hand up to run her fingers through his hair. She was quiet for a while, looking over the details of his face, before speaking again.

“Sarah.”

He blinked a few times.

“Huh?”

“Sarah.”

She repeated.

“My name is Sarah.”

After a moment he realized that that was the best answer he could’ve received. No other answer would’ve made him believe more that she truly wanted to be with him. He smiled and kissed her with a strong yet loving kiss. Even after he pulled away he had to kiss her once more because of how happy she had made him.

“Zachary.”

He finally responded, that smile unable to leave his face.

Sarah smiled back, just as happy.

“I’m looking forward to a new life with you, Zachary.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you to all who have read my story! i greatly appreciate the support
> 
> also, (because i have a problem) i’ve already started a new among us fic! this time it’s from the impostor’s point of view which is so exciting to write. it’ll probably be a while until i post it but i hope you guys will be willing to read that one too!


End file.
